The kid is alive. I feel bad because I've become what I didn't want to be...the parent that was super excited about their firstborn and took an insane amount of pictures/videos throughout the whole process and now ignores the second one because blogging is the biggest pain...ever. But, here is a video that shows there is some movement. Fetuses are probably the most stubbornly uncooperative people I've been around, so the video is over 2 minutes long. I think there is a total of 4 seconds of movement in that, so watch it, but skip ahead to like the 35 second mark and then the 1:45. Enjoy those 4 seconds of fetus-moving bliss. Otherwise you'll just be watching Jaime's stomach for 1 minute 54 seconds. I know I could watch that big beautiful belly all day. Awww...I'm such a charmer.
On another note. Everyone within the sound of my digital voice...convince Jaime that she is already the strongest woman you know and she doesn't need to prove that by having a natural childbirth! I fear for our relationship. I am not a compassionate person. As I write this, she keeps coughing from some phlegm she's had stuck in her throat for a week, and it is DRIVING ME CRAZY! Don't worry. She already knows. I've given her plenty of dirty looks.
We went and saw a Doula this week who is a friend of ours. She was asking me what I fear about the labor. She asked if it might be the blood and fluids flying all over the room which would make me pass out (she didn't say it like that at all). But that's not the case. I've seen all that before. I did watch Tess coming out, even though I promised I wouldn't. I wish all I feared was the nastiness. For me, it's seeing the one person I love more than anything going through the most unimaginable pain, and I have to just sit there and watch and say things like: "You're almost there!"..."That was a good push, you can do this!"..."Oh the humanity! It has tentacles!"
I have full confidence in Jaime being able to do a natural birth. I want her to feel that sense of accomplishment. I'm the one that has me worried. I feel like I can handle my own pain pretty well, but not hers. I'm a lot scared about seeing Jaime in that much pain and just being the one she leans on. Plus when I try to console someone, I sound like a condescending little league coach who is coaching as a form of community service: "You can do this slugger! Walk it off!"
I'm really not a good coach or cheering section. When I go to sporting events--even to see my favorite teams--I basically just sit there the entire time and clap now and again. No yelling. No motivational chants. Jaime definitely trumps my favorite teams, but at Tessa's birth, it was the same story. I was just the moron standing next to the bed clapping with an idiotic, horrified glare in his eyes. The only time I get excited and yell seems to be at little league basketball events--thanks for that awesomely embarrassing gene, Dad! So, Jaime, I'll probably be yelling at the doctor a lot more than helping you! It's gonna be such a mess, but I think that's the only way for me to get through it. "What are you blind, Doc! That was a travel!" He/she is going to be confused for the rest of his/her life why this one moron of a father kept calling double dribble on him/her. Anyone else freaked out about this birth? It's only like 7 weeks away people! Get your heads in the game! Anyone know what hospital we're going to? Jaime is keeping it a secret from me for some reason. Treasure hunts and adventures always make for the best births.
Anyhow, it looks like we're going to do a natural birth. Jaime told me a few weeks ago something like: "I'm never gonna climb Mt. Everest. I'm never gonna run a marathon. But this could be my Everest or marathon." I love this lady! So, Jaime, I'll do my best to be the Tenzing Norgay to your Edmund Hillary (or vice versa depending on which culture is telling the story). Awwww...I'm such a charmer.
11 comments:
So there are the cliche's: "Your child is never going to come back and say thank you mom, for giving birth to me naturally, with out any drugs."
While the intense pain and drama of the whole thing will stay in your memories forever, your kid will never care.
The few people I know that gave birth naturally, honestly hated the thing that came out of them, at least for the first few hours. They wanted nothing to do with the monster that just ripped through their bodies.
Each one of my labors is a very happy, very peaceful memory, full of meditation and happy tears. Epidurals are God's gift to us for saving us till the last days.
Jaime, I'm rooting for you all the way but don't crucify yourself in the process. Epidurals are indeed God's gift to all the women who have been "checkmated" (ha! humor from the SNL "seducing women through chess" you sent) and must never be ruled out when it's needed. Btw, I never thanked my mother (your grandma) because neither she nor I knew anything about epidurals. Such things were non existent in the grass huts we were born in.
As per your choice of husband, your mom and I couldn't be more proud and crazy happy for you. We love Josh and are so glad he's such a wonderful husband and father.
We are so looking forward to the arrival of another grandson, the great George Washington Alley.
Jaime, I've done it both ways and definitely prefer the epidural. But since this is your second, you might get lucky and have a 2 hr labor with 30 seconds of pushing like I did with Eli rather than the 2 hrs of pushing Miriam had with Ashton. My natural labor was way better than hers. In fact, I think you should try really hard to wait until the last minute to go to the hospital so Josh has to deliver the baby in the car. I think Josh could totally handle it. (Not really. You'd end up delivering the baby yourself.)
George Washington Alley - LOVE it!
Hey Jaime: I'm going to throw in my two-cents. I had a lousy experience with my epidural and Miriam's birth. So I wasn't sold on having one for Erin's birth and decided, as you, to go natural. I also wanted to be induced (and was) which created a much faster, more intense labor. (It was about 2 1/2 hours from start to finish.)
I did really great with my breathing and handling the pain-despite the pitocin. But there came a point when I decided I just couldn't take it any longer and asked for help (which came in the form of a demerol shot.) What I didn't know was that 1 minute after the shot I would be delivering the baby. I could have withstood the pain for another minute and have always felt ripped off that I wasn't told I had made it. And besides that, the shot didn't have time to take full affect until after I had Erin. So--don't let this happen to you!!!! If you should happen to decide to cave in like me, make sure you haven't already made it.
Oh Josh!
Thanks for updating your blog regularly. I look forward to every new post. I know that I don't call, text, or write often. However, I read your blog and get a sense of "keeping in touch". I am sure that I could come up with some good advice to give, if only I felt you were really asking for it.
One of the things that makes your blog great is that you present the serious stuff and express your passion, albeit disguised by a veil of humor. Those are the things I would never ask about, but love hearing you share.
We are a lot alike, as you know. I wish I could teach you how to express compassion and still feel natural. However, someone might have to teach me first. It is easy to criticize one's self, but I believe that in doing so you overlook that while the world may have others that seemingly show more compassion you feel more in a day than most of those people will in a year.
Jaime: Josh wanted me to tell you something, but I am on my phone (cannot go back and look) and I cannot remember (verbatim) so, instead I will just say, thank you. I think that I am as surprised as Josh that there was any one out there willing to put themselves through everything that being his better half entails. Keep it up! Give him a hard time when you can and continue pushing him to grow. As you know, communicating is more than just speaking the same language.
A general translation for the more compassionate and humor impaired individuals: Josh you're one of my best friends, I love you and Jaime, you are pretty swell as well. I miss all three point five of you (ya'll).
Just wanted to clarify that I don't judge anyone for getting an epidural. Everything (obviously) ended up working out fine when I got one with Tess, and clearly there are many, many babies in the world (myself included) born that way that go on to be perfectly healthy and happy. It wasn't a terrible or traumatic experience at all for me when Tess was born, there were just minor things about it that in retrospect I was not happy about.
For one, I didn't like that I spent 9 months terrified of the pain of labor and how I would handle it, but when I got to the hospital they said I was already dilated to a 5-6 and gave me the epidural right away, after which everything was very anticlimactic. "Uh...I just watch HGTV now until someone tells me to push? Okay..." Again, not traumatic at all, but also not the spiritual, empowering experience I was hoping for right before my baby's birth.
Then it took 2 hours to "push", which was another thing I didn't like b/c I couldn't feel anything - when the nurses would tell me to push all I could do was just lean forward and hope that was working. It made me feel very disconnected from my body.
I am also nervous about what I have since learned about the cascade of interventions that epidural can precipitate - necessitating pitocin and forceps and even c-section in some cases, none of which I want if they can be avoided.
From what I have read and studied this time around, there are ways of coping and meditating and breathing through the pain so that it doesn't have to be traumatic or emotionally scarring. Not that it will hurt less, but that it can be faced with preparation and acceptance instead of fear. I have no intention of crucifying myself (you are sweet to be concerned though, Dad!), but I like the idea of testing my limits. :)
As far as hating the baby after natural birth, I have actually read that the hormones released at childbirth that facilitate mother-child bonding are suppressed by epidurals, which can make breastfeeding more difficult to start up. Of course I still loved my baby right away, but it did take a few weeks for her to get the hang of nursing, and if I can avoid that this time around I would like that too.
Still, everyone experiences pain and especially labor pain differently, so I don't begrudge anyone their epidural. If anything I think doing it natural this time will help me know my own pain thresholds better for the future, since they haven't been tested much in the past. My doula friend says that if I could make it to a 6 with Tess (with her also being posterior), I will probably be fine for this delivery, assuming everything is normal.
If I end up needing lots of interventions I will make my peace with it, but I am hoping to last as long as I can, and hopefully then I will have made it! :)
Also a few things that probably don't need clarifying:
1) Josh is the sweetest and best of all husbands and I am not worried about how good a labor coach he'll be. *mushy love stuff*
2) This kid will not be middle-named Washington. Or Harrison. Or Michael. Sorry to disappoint. :)
Ok I did it four times the traditional way because I didn't know any better but with my last hospital birth I knew that I was missing something in the experience and was not as easily recovering or bonding.
My last birth at home completely natural was to not put it mildly, life changing. I don't villify epidurals (I do hate pitocin and episiotomies however)but I think the epidural takes away something that you can't understand until you have had a PREPARED natural childbirth.
If you aren't completely educated and prepared for it or you have complications I could see maybe possibly considering your baby a monster for few seconds...
but with a prepared couple and an undisturbed birth the bonding hormones are able to work to their full capacity and its overwhelming joy. A blissful birth indeed.
I don't "love" my naturally born baby more than my babies born with epidurals but I do heavily regret not knowing more about the process and giving them and myself that same experience.
Our modern birthing situation is in crisis. We are more likely to die in childbirth than our mothers were.
People don't like to face those facts but interventions lead to more interventions and in the end they are very unsafe for mom and baby. I know I have been the recipient of those dangerous interventions.
The respect and reverence I received from midwifery care was amazing.
Birth should be respected.
Natural childbirth is intense and if your team is secretly wishing you'd just get an epidural and be quiet and still the atmosphere will be restrictive to you.
I am hoping that is not the case because
If someone followed you in a marathon with a motorized wheelchair saying "come on just sit for a while.... you know you want too..."
But when you are alone in the moments when all the hoopla has settled and its just you and your newborn if you did it exactly the way nature intended you will have a natural high like you have never, ever experienced in your life and a joy returned from the face of your more alert baby.
beats - the scary time alone, trying to go to the bathroom on wobbly legs while my baby stayed longer in the nursery because her breathing was rapid...
after my natural birth I walked up a flight of stairs, took a shower, midwives cleaned up my house started laundry turned down my bed and brought me a snack and OJ
seriously night and day experiences...
I have yet to hear of or meet another woman with good midwives and a supportive husband and/or doula who did it natural regret a single thing about the experience - except that it was so wonderful they want to do it again right away.
Now moms who go into thinking I'll see how long I last and then don't get the epidural in time - they've been upset. but that is not the same as being prepared and supported.
oh and water... I can't say enough about being in water, that was truly an "aquadural"
2 other things -
- you made it to 6 with a posterior baby, holy moly girl - YOU CAN TOTALLY DO THIS. I only had a few contractions with PJ posterior and wowsa - that hurt but I was in the water and turned on to all fours and did this frogger thing for two contractions and he turned.
- you really need to practice, read the bradley books or hypno or whatever your doula suggests - it will feel silly and dumb but it will help, I found for us I needed to know time was passing through each contraction I felt like I could do anything for 24 hours and anything if it only lasted a minute, my contractions all lasted about a minute so I had kyle whisper the colors of the rainbow at 10 second intervals and I visualized the colors deepening - each time I felt like it was all I could take it was over.
and then I worked on relaxing totally in between contractions and wah-la, it didn't take 24 hours, only five and pushing without an epidural
super fast!!!
Thanks for the advice about practicing Janie! Not a bad idea :)
Sorry Josh you'll get no epidural pep talk from me - natural birth is indeed the most empowering thing I've ever experienced (even running a marathon didn't compare:) And having done it both ways, posterior is definitely more painful. You've got this Jaime!
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