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bylanna -- [adjective]: Sexually stunning 'How" will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Glorified Babysitting

So my first doula responsibilities start today. I am just serving as a sub for another doula who has prior obligations, but that combined with my current job is really laying the stress on thick. I desperately need to quit my current FT job, but my boss (who I suspect is on to me) has very clearly been avoiding having a phone conversation with me for almost two weeks now. It is his own fault if I only have a few weeks notice to give.

Meanwhile, I go to a glorified babysitting event today, as a woman has hired the doula group to do her chores (laundry, dog walking, grocery shopping). At least my foot is in the door!

Doula Time

Hello! This is a note to explain a switch in the focus of my blog from this point forward. The birth of my daughter was a life changing event, and I determined that I could take it upon myself to help birth become a life changing event for other women as well, so I have become a trained birth support and postpardum doula. For those of you who do not know what a doula is (from Wikipedia):

Labor support doulas are trained and experienced labor support persons who attend to the emotional and physical comfort needs of laboring women to smooth the labor process. They do not perform clinical tasks such as heart rate checks, or vaginal exams but rather use massage, aromatherapy, reflexology, positioning suggestions, etc., to help labor progress as well as possible. A labor support doula joins a laboring woman either at her home or in hospital or birth center and remains with her until a few hours after the birth. In addition to emotional support, doulas work as advocates of their client’s wishes and may assist in communicating with medical staff to obtain information for the client to make informed decisions regarding medical procedures.

Postpartum doulas are trained to offer families evidence-based information and support on infant feeding, emotional and physical recovery from childbirth, infant soothing and coping skills for new parents. They may also help with light housework, fix a meal and help incorporate an older child into this new experience.

I will be discussing my experiences on this site, but I will not be divulging the personal information of any of the women who choose me for their support person. This is going to be a major lifestyle change and I am sure....quite an interesting ride!!

YAY!

So now that Keira is turning 4 months, I realised how long it had been since I wrote...JEEZ. Time flies, doesn't it? Today I am recovering from Keira's 4 month shots. Yes, I know SHE was the one bombarded with needles...but *I* always end up just as upset as she does...if not more.

I just started back to work two weeks ago, which already has me in a foul mood. I told my boss that I could not travel for work anymore in the morning...and by the afternoon a work friend approached me to see if I would take a job under him. It is a serious paycut, but I can work most of the day from home which means no expensive childcare. Childcare around here costs more than half my salary, so it hardly makes working full-time worth it. Thank goodness for mom, who will take the baby for a few hours every afternoon.

The one shitty part of the deal was, that I had to pick up the slack from my other job until this new opening was created, so I have been travelling a bit for the last few weeks. Being away from Keira for a full 12 hours is rather PAINFUL (and not just mentally). I HAVE gotten quite good at pumping in odd places now though...including department store parking lots, grody airport bathrooms, and even while driving in rush hour traffic! Keira protested and refused to eat a few times, but when she is really friggen hungry, and when her bottle is heated roughly to the temperature of the sun, she will eat.

I am still waiting to fit comfortably back into pre-pregnancy clothes. I suppose I may still be waiting a year or two from now too, won't I?

Keira talks like a champ, but is a BIT developmentally behind in the grabbing/flipping/tummy time department. But oh well. Mom always says, "No kid ever went to college having not flipped over or not learned how to grab hold of small objects." I hear babies get more fun with age, but I wonder if that is just a ploy to convince us to keep them even after a night of gassy tummy screams.

Better Late than Never: Two Months Ago...

I am PETRIFIED about going back to work. 80% of my job requires travel. Let's just say that I will be looking desperately from work very soon. I am already running on empty trying to keep the house clean on top of mommy duties. My house is a pit 9 times out of 10. Cleaning up after myself and the baby (and usually Michael too) ON TOP of visitors is MURDER. Hell, if anyone else wants to cook or clean for me...I am all for it!

People laugh at me when I say I was more afraid of needles than of the childbirth process itself. :) I still am. We will see what happens if we decide Keira needs a little brother or sister.

Meanwhile, we are dead set to prove that there is no place you cannot take a baby. She goes everywhere...shopping, picnics, concerts, movies...I do admit, it is a bit more cumbersome when I have to duck into the bathroom with the baby every few minutes. She actually made it through Superman with only one minor peep. Since very few of my local friends have kids of their own, I also have to apologise every 5 minutes for stopping to feed her or change her. I really feel like the odd man out!

Oh yes, I am breastfeeding (I mean free baby food? Who wouldn't!?). It has been quite an experience. That's for sure. 4 days after Keira was born, I thought my boobs were going to explode. They stood straight out, were bright red, and had taken on the shape of lumpy torpedos. I am normally a B cup. During my pregnancy, I grew to a D cup, and after getting engorged, I was easily an F cup! I swear I went to sleep at night in tears for fear that this was what the next year of my life would be like! When Keira went in for her first out of hospital checkup, the pediatrician made me breastfeed her right there in the office. Took off my bra, and the doctor immediately inspected me and let me know I was on the verge of an infection unless we drained my milk ducts. She took Keira's little head and shoved it hard into my boob to make her drain me empty. It was pretty gruesome, but it worked. And she has been eating like a champ ever since! She actually gained 6 oz in the next two days!

I am still a fountain. Keira gets shot in the face almost every time she nurses! She cries, but it is hard not to laugh sometimes.

Owwie

So yes...it was labor alright.

Regular contractions began at 4:03 a.m. Wednesday. Our little princess tried desperately to come out of her momma ear-first. This bad positioning confused my body and led to 66 hours of contractions (at 100% effacement). After a routine midwife appointment Friday morning determined that I was 5+ cm dialated, I went home to try and take one last nap.

Mike, mom, Becky, Brian and I arrived at the hospital around 3 p.m. I was 7+ cm dialated, and requested the "room with the tub." Almost the instant I sat down in my hospital bed, my water broke. As soon as I said, "I think I am leaking," my brother shot out of the room like a bat out of hell yelling, "Someone help!" He did not come back. :) Everyone else stayed. After a bit of rolling around on the birth ball and swimming around the tub, the pushing contractions began. Soon we were even joined by my friend comebacknikki (who walked in on me nude, in a very compromising position...) 2.5 hours into the pushing, the fetal monitor heart rate dropped drastically, and an OB was called for emergency consult. Debi (the midwife) used the waiting time to continue trying to move me into other positions to relieve the stress on the baby. A flip to the side and a serious push resembling an arm-wrestling match did the trick and the heartrate returned to normal. 2.5 more hours of pushing (in about 7 different positions) resulted in lots of tears of joy and our little girl, with a nice lump above her right ear where she first attempted to emerge.

When Debi stopped by for a visit on Saturday, she confirmed that if I had in fact chosen to have an epidural, then there was a 99.9% chance that I would have had a c-section, since repositioning the baby was dependant on repositioning mom.

No drugs. No epidural. Just lots of hard work. I would never wish that kind of pain on anyone, but I would not change my decision to have natural childbirth for the world.

Labor, do not tease me...

So at approximately 4:03 AM I had what can only be described as the worst gas pains known to man (I know...TMI, but bear with me here). These continued to wake me up every 20 minutes, then 15 minutes...then by 6 am they were every 9 minutes and I was unable to get back to sleep. So here I am. Drinking loads of water, trying to decide if gas pains could possibly be this regular...

Alright, I have accepted that this may, in fact be labor. Or some form of false labor. Something is going on in my body. Meanwhile I am just sitting around, trying not to think about it...(yeah right!) Wish me luck!

Family Stuff

My grandmother died Sunday night. She was the last living grandparent (or grand-anything) I had. It was pretty sudden, and I tried to be a big girl about it. I was planning on going down to Atlanta for her birthday this year with the baby. I have not seen her in six years (since my parents' divorce), but I still recognized her voice every time she called. We may still have a memorial for her much later this summer, as my dad is going in for surgery soon and needs time to recuperate. My dad says having this baby is fitting, because now he is the oldest person in his family's generation and he is ready to welcome the new generation. This is the first grandchild for my folks, and I know they have wanted this forever.

My mom has now gone a month without cigarettes. I think taking her to birthing classes made this baby so very real and reminded her how important it was to me to have her smoke-free (a.k.a. stinky free) when the baby comes home. I have been a little too preoccupied with myself to really give her the congratulations she deserves. YAY MOM!

My sister-in-law, after many years of wanting to be a mommy...IS PREGNANT TOO!!!! ANOTHER HOORAY! She has been awesome about keeping up with me about her pregnancy and mine, and she is crossing that ten-week threshold that makes this an almost definite cousin for the little kicker in my belly! I joke that I am contagious...Which freaks all of my friends out and sends them running.

The hubby and sis-in-law's grandpa died a few months ago as well. So it really is fitting that we are bringing the new generation into the world at such a pace. Grandma W is going to be surrounded with grandbabies soon!

8 days

And yes...I am still pregnant. So much for the full moon and the barometric pressure. This baby is just NOT ready to be born yet. My hope is to go into labor before my upcoming practice presentation (Thursday) . Shame on me. I just have no desire to be anything but lazy.

My mom (who attended borthing classes with me) tells me that I am just preserving my Power (fromthe "4 P's of Labor, Power, Passage, Passenger, Psyche) for birthing. She also says not to go into labor until tomorrow after 11 am. I get such a kick out of people who give me "black-out" dates for labor. Like I can help it. Hell, I have my OWN black out dates! I want to go to Ravinia for one last pre-baby picnic, I want to go to the art fair this weekend, I want to see the truly unskilled, yet strangely appealing Keanu Reeves in The Lake House with my girl comebacknikki this weekend, I wanna do a lot of things. NOT MY DECISION.

Sigh. Maybe this will happen sooner, maybe later. Patience...wearing...thin...