DJ
Born at 6:05pm on the 4th of July 2008
Weighed 7lb4
52cm long

Both of us are very healthy. DJ is having some trouble working out how to latch on. I’m recovering from 4 days of the latent birth phase and an episiotomy. Amazingly enough, considering how exhausted I was, all I used was the gas. Oh boy did I use that gas. They had to take it away from me a few times…

I was saved from the “ring of fire” because it was looking like a vacuum extraction was needed so they had just administered the local when, hello, I get my act into gear and push him out. There is nothing quite like the feeling of having just given birth. It’s amazing. You go through all of that pain and then suddenly nothing hurts…

… Until the doctor starts stitching you up.

More photos to come.

So yay, the site is back up again properly. That was relatively painless. I shall explain what I did sometime in the future. Right now I’m too busy focusing on when the next “Oh my fucking god I’m in early labour” contraction comes on. They hurt in the way that if I had to put up with any more then the 1 every ten minutes for 60 seconds I’d probably cry. I just spent an hour in the shower because I was too scared about what they would feel like out of the water. They aren’t terrible. Just tolerable. Any worse and I’d be getting back in.

I’ve been like this now for 7 hours. I think it’s safe to say things are happening. Funny thing is someone is betting on the fact that the kid will be born today, that he’s a boy (obviously she already got that one) and he’s 9 pound. I’m hoping she’s wrong about the 9 pound part but I’ll be laughing if she’s right. It’s all her fault…

So, I’ve decided to take my mind off the fact that I feel like someone just ripped my heart out, I’m going to do something I meant to do a while ago.

The site may go down for a little while I change things around in a minor way. Still with the same host but finally purging myself of bellefemmenetwork.com .

Hope your days have been better then mine.

Just as I finished complaining/mentioning to someone that I haven’t had a braxton hicks contraction all day I get one that lasts 60 seconds.

My body and I… Sometimes we don’t see eye to eye.

Birth.

Hmmm. Birth. It’s a word that means so much.

At this very second it means three things.

1. Pain
2. Finally meeting my son. The being that has spent the last 9+ months residing inside of me.
3. Finally being able to just move on with life.

Naturally, the pain part goes first. I guess they are in chronological order when you think about it.

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into how I think I want to experience birth. One of the reasons I was so desperate for the sucker to be born before his due date is that I knew as soon as I reached overdue I would start putting way too much thought into the birth process. When ever I do that I tend to wreck things. Over analyse them and make them seem like more of a behemoth then what they really are.

Despite all of that, I’m not really scared of the process. I know, pain, lots of it, blood, crying, RING OF FIRE, etc etc etc. I just keep on reminding myself that those parts, the shitty parts, they won’t last forever. I’m not going to be in that sort of pain for the rest of my life. It’s a temporary thing. And they will be completely shadowed by the fact that, holy shit, that little being that has spent the entire last 9 months with me, I get to meet him. Touch him. Kiss him. Watch him. Poke HIM in the ribs.

I kid…

Now for the business end of this post. A collection of thoughts about how I want my labour experience to go.

Right at this point I’m feeling like things will never go anywhere and that I’ll be stuck with having an induction. Stuck with being hooked up to a drip. That idea does not appeal to me at all. Not for one second.

My first preference, obviously, is to go into labour naturally. For my body to go “Hey, let’s get this thing out now and be done with it!” It’s just hard to keep that in the forefront when every time I go to the doctors I find out yet again that he STILL hasn’t dropped down properly. He’s down fairly low, but just not low enough to be putting adequate pressure on my cervix. To make it feel like it can’t cope with things anymore.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not sure about pain relief options. Ultimately, I want to be able to do this with as little medical intervention as possible. I want to be able to do this without having to have an epidural. Not because I’m scared of it, but because it limits my options. It means that I won’t be able to spend as much/any time in my beloved bath. Hell, it’ll probably mean I won’t be able to move properly. Again, an idea that does not appeal to me at all.

I want to be able to manage my labour by trying various natural methods before jumping on the drugs bandwagon. I want to be able to try moving into various positions, spending time in the bath and or shower, or, well I don’t know.  Massaging? I think I’ll be the type who doesn’t want to be touched. That’s my general reaction when I’m in pain.

The bath and shower are my happy places. I get in a bath or shower and it’s like sensory overload. The pain just disappears. *POOF* My body is too busy freaking out about the fact it’s being touched EVERY WHERE to delegate any processes to pain.

(There goes another kick to the bladder. Screw you, kid…)

I also wonder how my husband will react to seeing me in so much pain. Will he want to try and rescue me, thus annoying the shit out of me, or will he take charge and make sure the nurses aren’t giving me too much of a hard time? Something we need to discuss further I think.

I generally don’t respond well to being harassed and/or coached. You know that scene in Sex and the City where Miranda is giving birth and she doesn’t like the perky nurse? That’s pretty much how I feel about coaching. Please, for the love of god, don’t stand there telling me to push fifty fucking times. I’m in labour, not deaf. Once is enough.

I’m not particularly keen at all about episiotomies. While I fully understand them being done when absolutely required, I just don’t want to be another woman who gets one “because”. Again, back to the “as little medical intervention as possible” ideal. Hopefully I/we will have had an opportunity to employ measures to reduce the risk of needing one.

As far as delivery of the placenta goes, I’ll take the jab please. The idea of waiting for it to come out sort of grosses me out. I mean really. Eww.

You’re probably thinking it’s silly for me to be making these assumptions about labour. To assume that I’m going to be able to do it all natural. I don’t really think I’m making any assumptions at all. I fully realise that there’s every chance that I may not be able to have anything go the way I want at all. These things I’m talking about are just my ideals. The things that I can tell practitioners so they have some idea about what I want, and when to leave me the hell alone.

Every time I write an update about my pregnancy lately, I wonder if what I’m saying makes me sound like a selfish bitch.

Sometimes I think that it does so I don’t publish it. Other times I’m so over the particular thing I mentioned I’m sure that there is someone else out there who relates, and connecting with them is worth it. You can’t please everyone all the time, can you?

About 18 months ago I was responsible for helping a mother get ready to do a radio show for mothers. We’d been working on getting some basic scripts together and sorting out things for her to talk about when she confessed something. That she felt uncomfortable talking about birth and certain aspects of pregnancy because her only child was born at 26 weeks after some complications such as a cervix that had forgotten what its duty was.

I was a bit shocked…

Is society so warped that a mother feels she has no right to talk about pregnancy and birth just because she didn’t experience it the same way as most women do?

I told her that just because she didn’t experience pregnancy and birth the way that most people do doesn’t make her any less qualified to talk about it. It also gave her something to talk about. Something that she can relate to people about. Something to make the listener feel like they know her. While her story may include some heartache and trouble, it doesn’t make it any less special. Nothing could take that away from her. If someone had an issue with what she was saying just because she didn’t do it the same way as most then, frankly, fuck them.

That story often comes up in my head when I’m writing.

I’m one of the lucky few who’ve had a “wonderfully uneventful” pregnancy. Some of my friends haven’t been so fortunate. During the time that I’ve been pregnant alone two of my friends have found out they are pregnant and one of my friends has given birth. One friend had a miscarriage at 8 weeks, the other is in the process of finding out if she has actually miscarried (light bleeding for three days at about 6 weeks), and the friend who has had a baby is experiencing postpartum depression.

I feel for each and every woman out there who is and has experienced the joys and heartaches involved with pregnancy and birth. It’s hard work. Here, let me make you a slushy or smoothy and paint your nails for you.

Pregnancy hasn’t been easy adjustment for me. Initially I didn’t cope well with the idea of changing from wife to mother. The crap that was going on in our lives at the time certainly didn’t help. Every time I walked into a hospital to have a check up my blood pressure would spike.  The highest was 150/70. I would get so worked up about the what if’s that I’d forget to breath. I couldn’t breath. I was paralysed by yet another tragic story I’d heard and OH MY GOD I don’t know what I’d do if that happened to me.

I’ve since overcome that problem. My most recent blood pressure reading was 112/60. My normal reading. I’ve learnt to get past all the what if’s and move on to what’s happening now. I wasn’t helping anyone by being so paranoid. It certainly wasn’t doing any good for the baby.

I still have moments where at any second I could start hyperventilating and pass out. I’m a weird one like that. The hardest thing about being over due is feeling helpless. I’ve always felt pretty weird about the fact that my body is solely responsible for the making of a human life. Not because it’s happening, but because it’s really hard to know that everything is going okay in there. You can have all the tests in the world run and they can come back fine but the Mama Bear instinct is still there.

I will feel much better when the babe has arrived. When I can see his chest move up and down when he’s breathing. When I can hear him cry because he’s hungry. When I can really know when somethings not okay and I can do something about it.

I suppose what I’m trying to say with all of this is that I am extremely grateful for the fact that I have been so fortunate. As paranoid as I have been about everything, I still haven’t had anything really to worry about. The funny thing is that I’m not really worried at all about birth, but that’s another post entirely…

I had an antenatal appointment today. It basically ended the same way as the last two I’ve had. The baby still hasn’t dropped. At least they didn’t send me for a blood test. The only change was today they hooked me up to a monitor that tracked contractions and the baby’s heartbeat. It was actually calming sitting there listening to the heartbeat. Reminders that the baby is indeed healthy in there are always welcome.

As I’m 3 days over due now the “what if” discussions are really starting to come into play. Turns out they won’t induce me until I’m 10 days overdue. That’s next Thursday. While I want to get out of here as soon as possible, my first preference is to actually go into labour on my own and spend as little time attached to a drip as possible. It wasn’t such bad news to hear I have to wait until Thursday. I was hoping for Monday or Tuesday but it is what it is.

I’m really starting to feel heavy now. It feels completely irrational. I’m no heavier then I was a few days ago, yet today on the walk to the hospital I really felt as if I suddenly weighed an extra ten kg’s. It’s frustrating. I’ve also had a pretty persistent lower back ache now for a few days.

Last night was a particularly unpleasant night. I had a pretty nasty eye strain headache. It was my own fault for forgetting to pack my glasses. On top of the headache my dinner didn’t agree with me. I had tried to go to sleep at about 8pm but woke up at about 9:30pm by the urge to puke. And puke I did. Oddly enough I felt mildly better afterwards. Another half an hour later I was bent over the toilet again throwing up bile. Throwing up food I can deal with, but throwing up bile? That, my friends, is part of my definition of hell.

Thankfully I woke up this morning with only a mild reminder of what went on last night. I knew the headache would go away if I just got a decent nights sleep. It wasn’t easy but I did well enough.

Here’s hoping that I do much much better tonight…

John Mellancamp - Rave On
Dragon - Rain
Hooters - All You Zombies
Everlast - What It’s Like
Stone Roses - Fool’s Gold

I used to host an 80’s & 90’s show. Unfortuntely it was one of those things that went by the wayside because the rest of my job was more important. Perhaps I’ll start it up again after the baby’s born.

The world is a funny place sometimes.

Just when I was starting to feel a bit glum about everything the world sends me a few people to catch up with. Both expected and unexpected. One of whom I haven’t talked to for about 4 years.

I’m feeling much more positive now. It’s way to easy to get stuck in negative thinking when you’re watching CSI shows…

Yesterday while I was waiting for my antenatal appointment, someone put on a movie about childbirth. I can’t remember what it was. There were three women in the waiting room. One had already seen the movie and felt like giving a blow by blow about it. Only the horrific parts of course. She had already had another child so “she knew what it was all about” and “didn’t need to see it again”.

The funniest part about the whole thing was that she seemed most horrified about the fact that the woman was giving birth NAKED. That her husband was there with her while she was NAKED, the whole time naked. “Fuck that” she said. I tried not to laugh at the irony of what she was saying. Right, so you’re worried about your partner watching you give birth naked yet the act that got you where you are now required at least some degree of nakedness. Makes perfect sense.

To each their own, I suppose. My husband seeing me naked didn’t even register as something of concern when thinking about the whole process…

The antenatal appointment lasted for about 10 minutes, and was with a male doctor this time. Basically we talked about my records, how I’ve been feeling (lonely, over it, just wanting to go home), how much the baby moves (he’s a kickboxer), any complications, etc etc. Basically I’ve had a wonderfully boring pregnancy. No complications, just very few check ups early on due to the whole moving saga.

We also discussed what will happen if the baby’s late. My suggestion was that if the baby hasn’t made an appearance by my next appointment, perhaps we should just schedule an induction for the following Monday, which will mark 41 weeks. He said they could consider that.

Then came time to feel where the baby was. As I expected, he still hasn’t dropped down properly. I wasn’t surprised but at the same time it felt like all the air had been knocked out of me. Another week of no progress. We then listened to the heart, which the doctor had trouble locating. I told him he should probably try the otherside and what do you know, a heartbeat.

He helped me off the bed and handed me another blood test request that the doctor I had seen last week had done up. Great. Fucking great. I’m a walking pincushion. Two for two, I thought. Every time I’ve gone in to see them I’ve left with a request for blood tests.

Last weeks was an oral glucose test, even though I’ve already had two done during this pregnancy that have come back not even hinting towards any problems. Surprise surprise, this one came back the same. I’m not a diabetic! I’m feeling a bit annoyed about that. I had to fast over night (love that heartburn), sit in the pathology centre for two hours and get jabbed in the arms three times. I think the doctor ordered the test because she had a quality control person sitting in supervising her and she felt as if she had to be seen to be doing something.

This weeks tests were for my iron levels, HIV and syphillis, because apparently they had been missed. Makes you feel real good, doesn’t it?

As you can see I’m a bit over the whole thing. I just want to be home with my son and my husband.