It's good to be back... an update

Hello! Is there anyone still out there? I have been MIA, I understand if you've all gone AWOL.

Things have been rolling along since Richie's birth. He is 10 weeks today! I can't believe how time has flown! It's certainly gone a lot faster than the last few weeks of my pregnancy!

I've decided to do an update using sub-headings as my brain is full of thoughts and I don't want to forget anything...

Family

Richie Jack has settled right into life in our little brood and Molly (despite the expected adjustment issues) absolutely loves having a little brother. She loves him hard. In fact, much of the time I am trying to stop her from smothering him with her affection. I am truly in love with my son. He is the sweetest little boy and is so chilled out, only really crying when he needs a feed, sleep or nappy change.

Our household is in the midst of change right now as our lovely housemate is moving out as she is marrying her love in 6 weeks time. I'm so happy for her but will miss her so much. We interviewed a prospective new housey but decided after meeting him that we would like to have some time as a family unit. It was nothing to do with him. He was a lovely guy who would have fitted in nicely however it just wasn't sitting right. We can't really afford the rent on our own without using some of our savings however it really feels like the right thing to do so we are just going to have to make it happen somehow. Our lease is up in February next year so we would have to spend about $3000 extra if we were to stay here in our own until the end of the lease. If we did that, we would then find something smaller (a 2 bed unit or something) in the new year or find a new housemate to move in with us. I figure we will know what the right thing is at the time. Until then, we are going to be focusing on frugality and thriftiness in  big way. Stay tuned for more frugal living posts! I welcome any ideas for interesting ways of bringing some more income into the household.

I am meeting my half brother for the first time soon! This is extremely full on as he has been estranged from my father for as long as I have been alive. He's about 20 years older than me.

Home

With our housemate moving out comes the exciting prospect of playing "house tetris" and re-arranging our space!! Molly will be moving into our housemate's bedroom (with floor to ceiling wardrobes! Storage!!!), Molly's old room will be becoming our study, the front room will probably be a play room/guest room/second living room, we are getting a smaller fridge and dining table for the kitchen area as we have not had an indoor dining table since we have moved in! The place is going to feel so much better. I am also planning to get into the garden, grow some veggies and just generally make it feel a little bit nicer. Ahh! Home! :)

Parenting

I am trying to be more proactive with my every day engagement with Molly. During the end of my pregnancy it became the norm for Molly to watch a lot more TV than I am really comfortable with. I felt bad about this however I didn't feel it was fair to ask her to turn it off considering I was not really prepared to or capable of helping her find activities to fill her time. But now I am and I'm trying to make up for lost time :).. I have bought some craft books and we are choosing a few things to do each week. I'll post some photos of our creations as we complete them. This week's first activity is making a mini worm farm!

Friends

I have also decided to be more intentional about connecting with people in our community. I have started going to the gym and walking with a kinder mum and I've been making coffee dates with some of the other parents. I have met a lovely woman who has really similar values around social justice/environmental issues/community connection etc and we are having a cuppa tomorrow morning. Her house is amazing. Her family are renters but have a great relationship with their landlord and negotiated a secure long term lease in exchange for their family purchasing rain water tanks and solar panels for the house. It's a great deal for both parties. They also have an amazing veggie garden, chooks and they pretty much never buy anything new. I've also put our family on the waiting list for the Western Organic Collective. I don't know how long it will take to get in but I am really excited.

Health and Fitness

I've got some work to do!

This area needs a lot of work. I have fallen into bad eating habits. It's not my main meals- I still eat loads of veggies, yummy alternative grains, lean meats, fruit etc.. it's the extra bits and pieces. The chocolate, baked treats, ice cream etc that have crept back in and are stopping me from losing the weight I put on during pregnancy. I have about 20kg to lose. I hope to lose it by the end of the year. I think that is a realistic goal.

I have started working out again. I am gradually building up my weekly sessions. At the moment I am doing a circuit class at the gym on Tuesdays, Walking with my friend on Wednesdays, trying to get to the gym on thursdays to do my program and walking around the tan with my mum on Sundays. I would like to build this up to doing something every day eventually consisting mostly of running and weights as I know these activities make me feel really good and give me a really nice shape.

Craft

Molly learning to sew

Crafting is my new outlet. I have taught myself to crochet and am in the process of learning to sew. I get so much pleasure from reading craft books and perusing blogs for ideas. Stay tuned for pics of my creations! I am thinking of doing some giveaways. Anyone want a pressie??

If you're still reading, thank you! I love knowing that there are a few of you out there supporting me. Please drop me a comment and say hi! 

Much love!

xox

My gorgeous ones

Oh, and here's my delightful offspring. Molly 4.5 years and Richie 9 weeks.

*Melt*

Crafty goodness..

Recently, Google taught me to crochet!

I've found a use for all my scrap wool in making this blanket. It is going to be 5x5 squares.. Should only be another week before it's done!

Happy crafty days!

I'm BAAACK!!

New computer = back in the bloggersphere!! 

Stay tuned!!

The birth story of Richie Jack...

Warning... this post contains birth photos & me in the nuddie! Do not proceed if you wish to avoid seeing my woman bits!

So here we are! Richie is living his ninth day on the outside and is doing wonderfully. 

Richie's birth story starts way back at my blessingway on February 4th. After everyone went home I had about 25 hours of prelabour before it tapered off and stopped. This put my brain into the labour zone and I started to feel like it might happen soon. At this point I was 38 weeks pregnant and totally ready for it to happen. 

Each day I anticipated labour starting. I had several other prelabour sessions as I passed 39, 40, 41, 42 weeks. Each day I felt different. Some days I was happy to keep waiting and just went on with life as normal. Other days I got so down and sad and felt that my body had betrayed me. As you know I had been planning to give birth in our home and I really wanted to avoid induction- particularly the syntocinon drip which causes the nature of labour to change dramatically and moves a woman far away from the physiological hormonal process that usually happens in natural birth. 

I decided to have monitoring in the hospital after 42 weeks to ensure that our baby was ok and that the placenta was still functioning properly. My plan was to wait until labour started spontaneously unless the monitoring indicated that the baby really needed to be born. I had five days of monitoring and on the 5th day, there was a significant enough change to cause me to make the decision to change to "plan B" and have an artificial rupture of membranes (AROM) in the hospital on Sunday the 13th of March. 

Once I had made that decision I had this overwhelming sense of peace. Like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. Molly went to stay with her cousin Felix for the night and John and I had a lovely relaxed night together watching crappy American sit-coms (Everybody Loves Raymond, Seinfeld and the american version of The Office were our favourites over last weeks of my pregnancy) and I slept so deeply and peacefully. It was the best I had slept in months so I woke feeling refreshed and ready for what the day would bring. We were asked to get to the hospital at 6:45am to be admitted and get settled into our birthing space. My mum and midwife arrived at about 8am and we sat and chatted and eagerly anticipated the coming events!

Waiting to be seen by the doctor. About 7am. Excited!

At 10am a doctor came to see me and he checked my cervix. He said it was 3cms and could be stretched to 4 so I wouldn't need any prostaglandin gel to ripen my cervix before breaking my waters. I was really happy about this as the gel can cause more discomfort. He then broke my waters. There was only a small amount at first so we weren't sure if he had done it properly but when I stood up I had a big gush and soaked several pads before it lightened to a trickle. The liquor was perfectly clear (which is sort of strange for such a "post-dates" baby).

We decided to get out of the hospital for a while and went for a walk in a really lovely park nearby. It was a beautiful day. A clear blue sky and a lovely breeze. Perfect for walking in the park. It was a very strange feeling. So normal. Walking in the park with John, mum and Joy and chatting about whatever came up. Kind of ignoring the fact that I was trying to get myself into labour. It was a stark contrast to the dark stairwell walk we did after I had an AROM with Molly. After this we decided to grab a drink and something to eat from the cafe before returning to the room to concentrate on getting things moving. 

Once back in the room I started having some irregular contractions. They were only light and I could easily talk through them. Mum, John and Joy sat around doing crosswords and playing scrabble on the iphone and I went into the bathroom, turned off the bright light and listened to my birth hypnosis CD. I would come out and give thumbs up when I was having a tightening and John wrote down the time. I didn't care about how far apart they were. I was busy trying to get out of my head and into labour land. As the time approached for the doctors to return and check my progress I started having what I would describe as proper labour-like contractions. They were further apart and much more intense. Like a rubber band being pulled from hip-bone to hip-bone and crampy. I had about 4 or 5 of these before the doctor returned. 

When he came back I was mid contraction and I had to wait for it to finish before being able to let him examine me again. It was two o'clock by this stage and he said I had made very little progress between the last VE and this one. He said the head was much lower but I was still only about 4 cms. At this point he strongly recommended I consent to the syntocinon but after asking for some privacy to talk it over with my team, I decided to wait another two hours to see if what I was feeling was actually true labor contractions. I'm so glad I did! This was it!

Things intensified very quickly after this point. Before this point I was mostly in the bathroom but ventured out to have a chat every now and then. Once the contractions started picking up I decided that the bathroom was the perfect place to be. It was not the vision I had for my birth but it felt safe and I stood in front of the toilet hanging on to the grab-rail and lowering myself up and down onto the toilet. I felt this motion really helped bring the head down and although it hurt more when I sat down it felt really good to feel the opening/stretching sensations that told me my baby was coming. I was taking my pants off and putting them back on when I sat on the toilet and at some stage I decided it would be better to leave them off. 

I started needing to vocalise through the sensations and found my "labour song". I moaned with a low "OOOOHhhhhmmmmmm" sound and tried to focus on relaxing my bottom and let gravity draw my body down with each wave. I still had decent breaks in between sensations at this point.

Right on two hours after the last VE the doctor returned (funny, he had been late all day but now that I was refusing syntocinon he was very keen to examine me again). From my perspective it was pretty clear that I was in labour. I was vocalising, I was hiding in my bathroom cave, I had my pants off and didn't care who saw me but still... I had entered into the medical model and they need hard evidence to prove that a baby is coming. I said if the doctor was going to examine me he was going to need to do it in the bathroom. He seemed very uncomfortable with this and said that it would be a bit awkward (for him yes!!). My midwife said something along the lines of "I once had a vet as a client who said she never made a cow lie down on a bed for an examination"... We all laughed.. I said something like "I hope he doesn't need to put his arm that far up me".. the doctor didn't get the joke.. I was grateful to Joy for lightening the mood and for making the doctor look a bit stupid. After this I actually felt a little better and decided to get the exam over with so I quickly jumped up on the bed and I was examined again. This time the doctor was very rough. He poked and prodded and I told him to stop. He didn't stop, saying he just wanted to check one more thing"...I said "get out". Someone said "she has withdrawn her consent" (meaning, what you are doing is no longer legal) and he quickly stopped. He told me I was 7cms and the baby was in a right occiput anterior position (ROA). I was very glad to see the back of him (I think we all were). I'm pretty sure he was annoyed that I had been right about what I was feeling.

I told Joy that I didn't think that baby was ROA. I thought LOA and the doppler position when we checked the heart rate was consistent with my feeling. 

I hurried back to the bathroom and resumed my position in front of the loo. I said to Joy "no synt for me" and burst into tears. My vocalisations were picking up intensity and I took off my birthing beads. They were just annoying me by this stage. My moans started to get really shaky at the peak of each wave and tapered off. I had a heavy crampy feeling between each contraction and wasn't finding much relief although I would definitely say there was no time when I had back-to-back contractions that I couldn't cope with. The sensations were extremely intense. I started saying "owww" and "this hurts". When I said these things I found it much harder to relax my bottom and it made it hurt more. I remembered Ina May's advice to relax your mouth and relax your bottom. I adopted a new chant.. "Relaaaaaax relaaaaaaax relaaaaaaax" and "yessss yesss yesss" while squatting down and relaxing downward. I even started saying "thank you Lord" at the peak of contractions.  Once I relaxed I could cope very well with the intense surges and I could breathe my baby down. Joy applied counter pressure to my sacrum which helped a lot. I could feel a great heaviness in my vagina and I asked for a wet face washer to hold against it. There was bright red blood on the face washer and I knew my cervix was nearly there. 

All of a sudden I had this burst of energy. I was no longer in a meditative state. I was fully alert and said "okay, let's go out now". I left my cave, took off the rest of my clothes and took up an all fours position on a mat next to the bed. I leaned on the bed for a while and felt the nature of my sensations change from the stretchy opening cramps to an expulsive pushing urge. I never got to feel this with Molly as I was totally numb from the waist down. It was an amazing feeling. My body just took over and my vocalisations became higher pitched and grunty. Kind of like crying with a grunt at the end. Then the crying stopped and then there was just the grunting. 

Feeling the first of the pushing urges

There's the facewasher next to my knee... Ignore the dirty feet.

My mum was sitting in front of me and looked like she didn't know what to do with herself so I asked her to come around the "back-end" with the others. The head came into view very quickly and I moved from all fours to having one leg up, then swapped legs due to a cramp and then returned to all fours with my bum very close to the mat. Mum said that watching the midwives was like watching two mechanics working with their torches underneath a car. 

Bringing baby down

I touched the head and was totally awestruck. I felt long hair that I stroked. I felt my perineum stretching and massaged it with my hand. I pushed with each contraction and felt the head come further and further down. It slipped back once but I quickly figured out how much pressure I needed to maintain in order to hold it there between surges. I felt the "ring of fire" and spent one contraction resisting it but then decided I really wanted to meet my baby and with an almighty push I worked the big round head out of my body. 

Melon head emerging!

I rested between contractions. As soon as I felt the next surge I pushed with everything I had and felt the body slide out of me. I stopped pushing, thinking it was all done and the midwife said "keep going, the legs aren't out" and with one more push the rest came tumbling out.

After unwrapping the cord that was wrapped around a leg and an arm (I think), Joy passed my baby through my legs to me and I held it close and enjoyed the feeling of my warm, wet, squirmy baby on my chest. I put my wiggly little person down in front of me and checked the sex.. A BOY! MY BOY! I stroked his body and face and made sure he was breathing and ok. He let out a beautiful cry and I held him to my body again before moving to the bed for skin to skin and the first breastfeed. He attached almost immediately. John spent the second stage taking photos and some video and cried when we realised we had a boy and all was well. He was/is so proud of me.

Richie Jack Carr was born on 13.3.11 at 5:11pm weighing in at 4.46kg or 9lb 13oz.

Joy and I had worked out a plan for the third stage (delivery of the placenta) that was different to hospital procedure. Because I had my waters artificially broken (therefor disturbing the natural process albeit in a small way) I had decided to have the oxytocic injection to deliver the placenta but because I wanted to let my baby receive all the blood from the cord (wait for it to stop pulsating before cutting it) Joy recommended waiting for it to stop pulsing before giving me the injection, thus ensuring that he didn't get any of the oxytocic drug via the placenta (usually the midwife would inject the mum in the thigh as the shoulders came out). There was also instruction in Joy's words, not to "fiddle with the fundus" and to let me push the placenta out when it detached itself. This process went exactly as we had planned and I have had only light bleeding since. Joy and I examined the placenta together and it was intact and the membranes only had a small hole where Richie came through. Amazing! 

I required some stitches as my episiotomy scar from Molly's birth didn't hold up very well. That was very uncomfortable! 

All in all it was an amazing birth for a hospital induction! I felt strong, empowered and knew what was going on in my body. Of course, I would have preferred to birth at home however I am so happy with how this birth went and am so grateful to my support people. I would never birth in a hospital without an independent midwife. 

Richie required some special care in hospital but is fine now and I'll elaborate more on that in the next post.

 Hope you enjoyed reading about Richie Jack's birth!

Little Buddha 

Welcome little boy...

Richie Jack Carr is here finally!

Born 13.3.11 at 5:11pm
At the royal women's hospital after rupture of membranes (no other interventions or drugs.. Yay!)

4.46kg (9lb 13oz) 37cm head circ!! (it definitely felt that big!!!)

Richie spent some time in the special care nursery after he picked up an infection but is back in my arms as the medication has worked well.

Birth story to come in the next week or so.

Welcome gorgeous baby Richie Jack..

Still pregnant!

Still waiting!!

According to that little ticker over there in the left corner I am now 41 weeks and 6 days. That is based on my ultrasound estimated due date which was quite a bit different from how pregnant I thought I was. The EDD that I'm comfortable going with is 28th Feb (based on a 28 day cycle).. which I'm not even sure about.. There is also the 4th of March which was thrown in the mix somehow (me stuffing up when trying to calculate I think). Anyway. I feel I'm around 41 weeks. Due dates suck anyway so lets just forget about the date and say I'm still here and can't wait to meet my little squishy!

Today was the first time I have stepped into a hospital in this entire pregnancy. I decided to have some monitoring to ensure that babe and placenta are happy and doing what they are supposed to be doing. I went into this knowing that the outcome of this monitoring could affect whether or not I am able to have this baby at home but I figured that I'd rather know what was going on and be able to make a truly informed decision based on the information received from the monitoring. 

So we went in via emergency (which is apparently the procedure) and were directed to the monitoring area where we were greeted by several smiling faces. It was nice to walk in to a hospital and to be greeted so warmly. We only had to wait for five minutes before being directed into a private cubicle and "hooked up" to the CTG. We busied ourselves with crosswords while we waited.

The midwife allocated to us in the beginning seemed a little frazzled and had a medical student shadowing her. She hooked me up without introducing herself, said it would be about 20 minutes of monitoring and left to go on her lunch break. I was kind of happy that we were being allocated another nurse as that one made me feel a little edgy and I didn't feel particularly "cared for" by her... maybe she was just hungry. The next midwife then arrived and introduced herself and gave us an opportunity to introduce ourselves (addressed John directly). She stayed in the cubicle with us while I asked what the trace meant and what the implications could be if we didn't get a "normal" reading. She took the time and answered in depth, acknowledging my plans to home birth (without making me feel like a reckless hippy) and being totally sympathetic that I needed to even set foot in the hospital. She validated my feelings and agreed with my decision to come in for monitoring so that I had all the information I needed to make the decision that was right for me. She reminded me that it was MY decision no matter the outcome and was just so lovely and respectful. I feel she was sent to me... a little angel in a nurses uniform.

20 minutes passed, then 30, 40, 50, 60... They just could not get a baseline. Bub would not settle down! They tried with me sitting upright, semi-reclined and lying on my side but still, baby just wanted to party. So much movement and quite a few contractions and NO baseline in over an hour. The nursing staff seemed a little concerned as they couldn't send us home without a good baseline trace so they asked the doctor to come and have a look and a chat with us about what to do from there. I got nervous. But I needn't have. The doctor was lovely. She explained that they needed to get a good trace before I went home and also spoke about what they would recommend at this stage (which would essentially be an induction) but asked us to go off for a walk and get some lunch, give baby a chance to settle down and come back to try again after that. So that's what we did. 

While we were at lunch we talked about the possibility of induction and how that would make me/us feel. I realised that I have processed Molly's birth really well as I was able to honestly say that if there was a legitimate reason to give birth in the hospital (which at this point in the day was a possibility), that I would be ok with this. Having so much more knowledge and an independent midwife who would be with me would help me to make decisions in my own power and to ensure we set ourselves up for the best birth in any environment. 

So we returned to the monitoring area and I was directed straight to another bed. I was cared for by another lovely midwife who reminded me of a friend of mine. She lay me on my left side and said that she would try a trick shown to her by a woman pregnant with twins. This woman said that when she would go out in the sun her babies would jump around like crazy but settled when she went inside. So the midwife lay me down, turned off the lights and put a sheet over my belly to create a dark space. Baby responded immediately and began to settle. Then John came in (he had needed to move the car 3 times at this stage) and baby started jumping around when s/he heard his voice. Which is very cute and nice but also annoying at that point in time. John stopped talking and after wiggling around for a while trying to settle, went to sleep and let us get a really good trace with a definite baseline. Yay! 

I also had an ultrasound fluid check which showed I still have plenty of fluid. The doctor offered to do a stretch and sweep which I agreed to and she said that my cervix is 1-2 cms dilated and nice and stretchy. 50% effaced. It was mildly uncomfortable but not painful at all. This is a change from Friday when my midwife tried to do a sweep and could only get one finger in. So all signs point to labour not being far away.

After all that, the doctor basically told me that she "had" to inform me of the risks of waiting longer than 42 weeks but it was clear (in her body language) that she thought everything was fine and that I was making the right decision to wait. No one made me feel reckless or silly for planning to birth at home or for waiting. I was sent home and asked to come back in 2 days for another check if I hadn't come into labour before that. 

So a long day, but a pretty positive experience all up!

HibOO d'Live : Mumford and Sons "Timshel"

Thanks to Amber at BirthRoutes for sharing this...

Yep.. We are still waiting for baby.. no action yet

40 weeks tomorrow

This morning I visited my midwife for my 40 week check-up. After a lovely chat and making some last minute arrangements, she taught me her special nipple stimulation technique so I can try to encourage things along and not end up needing to go down the route of monitoring in the hospital after 42 weeks.

It was quite funny actually as my friend (and student midwife) Mel was there and Joy suggested she try it on her own nipples so she could feel her body respond and understand what the mother may feel (sort of- without feeling her uterus contract around a giant baby). So we were all sitting there stroking our nipples together and having a good old giggle. We were very pleased to see that my uterus responded very quickly with a nice strong contraction and I had three more before I left. All seems well. My blood pressure is 110/70 as usual. FHT= 140. Position feels good and the head is down nice and low now.

John and Molly went op-shopping while I was there (Molly bought a birthday present for the baby... very sweet) and when they picked me up we headed back across town toward home. We decided to make a quick detour via the Abbostford Convent bakery to get a delicious pie for lunch. I really didn't feel like getting out of the car so John ran in and we ate our lunch in the car before heading home. On the drive I felt all spacey and glazed and really couldn't wait to get home into my nest.

There has been the nicest feeling in the house since we got home. John and I sat down to have a cup of tea and enjoyed sharing a piece of lemon slice and a florentine cookie. I decided to try the nipple thing and it started working immediately. John left me to it while he helped Molly tidy her room.

For the rest of the afternoon I have only needed to stimulate about one in five contractions. They are starting to become more pronounced but still not painful. I just had the most wonderfully hot shower (finally, it's cool enough weather to enjoy one!) while John took Molly for a scoot down to the park and I have just really enjoyed the alone time, sitting on my bed all warm from the shower with some beautiful candles burning, feeling my body prepare itself for the work ahead. I have decided to have a break from trying to make them happen while I have dinner and see if my body decides it wants to keep them happening.

I am really excited to meet our baby. Will it be a little boy or a little girl?? We have names ready finally!

Not getting my hopes up as I have had a lot of prelabour and I know that it could all stop before the night is through. Right now I am just enjoying the stretching, pulling, crampy sensations that signal that our baby may not be far away from meeting us.

We shall see...

39 week belly