Posts by bluebirdmama
International Day of the Midwife
I just got back from the dentist. I really dislike going to the dentist but I needed a filling so there I was, lying in the chair, upside down, with my standard issue protective glasses, feeling very anxious. From my vantage point I could see a small bit of the ceiling tile, a big square bright light, and the faces of the dentist and the dental assistant. They were talking back and forth about something banal in the office. They passed instruments back and forth above me. My fists were clenched. The noise of the drill echoed in my head and I smelled burning tooth. At one point, the dentist was pushing hard on my jaw in a way that was painful. I was having a hard time swallowing. With the rubber dam in, I couldn’t speak or ask them to stop. I didn’t understand everything that they were doing, nor did I know what all of the tools were for. No one saw the need to explain step by step what was happening. I was powerless. I had no choice but to defer to the dentist because he has Knowledge that I do not. And I thought to myself, “this is not natural.” And then, with relief and wonder I thought, “Thank goodness the births of my children were not like this.” And I felt terribly sorry for the many many women who experience their children’s births the same way I experience the dentist. I thought of that ridiculous comparison between natural childbirth and having a tooth pulled without anesthetic. I thought of all the ways that medicine and power and birth are in such a huge big jumble in our culture. So today, International Day of the Midwife, while I was at the dentist I felt love, respect and gratitude for all the midwives out there: The ones who, in a world where birth often looks like this: photo credit: Mwesigwa can make it look like...
Read MoreOn Being a Bad Blogger
Some bloggers post every day or at least a couple of times a week. I’m not one of them. In case you hadn’t noticed the time lag, I just posted my son’s birth announcement SEVEN weeks after he was born. Initially my intention was to post about 5 times per month but eventually I just gave up on that and decided to be a bad blogger. Why be bad? Well, being a good blogger takes considerable effort. You have to post regularly, and hopefully that means often, but at the very least it should be regular. It takes time to write posts, especially when you’re just starting out and not really well practiced at coming up with ideas or writing short posts (I’m raising my hand here). In addition to the time spent writing, you might have to research your posts which takes longer. You have to read and respond to comments if you get them. You need to create community by reading and commenting on other blogs. And you have to drive traffic to your blog through social media. This is what it takes to be a good blogger. Recently Melody from Breasfeeding Moms Unite decided to call it quits because she was no longer willing to be a good blogger. It was taking her away from her children for too many hours during the day and it was impacting her ability to be the mom she wanted to be, especially regarding screen time for her children and herself. I really admired her open and honest post when she hung up her hat. I too am not willing to be a good blogger. I just can’t do it. I don’t have the time. I am homeschooling my son, I have a toddler and I just had a baby. I am not willing to have the kids watch tv all day and I can’t stay up at night to blog because sleep is already at a premium around here. But I don’t want to quit either. I want to write. It’s good for my adult brain to practice writing and I want to get better at it. It is something that is just mine in this life stage where I have so little me left at the end of the day. Unlike a journal however, blogging gives my writing context. Having some preset ideas of topics helps generate ideas. I also follow people on twitter and facebook that write on similar topics so I often find interesting things to read and also informs my writing. The format also gives me a reason to edit, spellcheck, refine my craft and add pictures. This doesn’t happen when scribbling in a notebook. And let’s not forget about the audience. Nobody reads your journal and you have to be highly skilled, polished and ambitious to be published in print. Blogging means that my writing can be part of a dialogue with other people rather than just something I do by myself. I love getting comments and subscribers. I love when other bloggers touch on similar topics. I love being inspired by other bloggers, by articles and studies I find through twitter or facebook. The audience makes me feel like I’m a part of something. For me, that is a specific something. When I sold my birth supply business, I felt a big hole in no longer being active in the birth advocacy community and I wanted to stay involved somehow. My focus has grown since that time and because this blog has a general focus that my business site didn’t have, I feel connected to the broader parenting community. I may not blog every day (or every week) and I may not have thousands of readers. I may not actually get the chance to write every post that rattles around in my head while I load the dishwasher and change diapers and play Uno. I don’t read all of the posts in my blog reader (mark all as read anyone?) but I do make an effort to comment on the ones I do...
Read MoreAnnouncing…
…{better late than never}… Silas Blaze February 16, 2011 ~ 1:48 am 8 Lbs 5 oz. 19.5 inches Birth story to follow.
Read MoreGratitude: the last word on my last pregnancy
For many years now, I have taken the last week of December and first week of January to reflect on the closing year and anticipate the coming new year. Last year, I even chose a word of the year. I had every intention of doing that again this year but alas, in my advanced stage of gestation, I found that I could not think beyond the task set for me for mid-February: birth. Between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, all I could focus on was preparing for the new baby. My blog was quiet. My life was full. And tiring. So, this year there was no word of the year. But there was a word. The word that continued to bubble up in my mind every week was gratitude. For my pregnancy. For my baby. For the fact that it was my last foray into childbearing. I was grateful for: pregnancy perks: my strong fingernails my shiny & manageable hair gaining weight (I’ve struggled with being underweight since high school) bigger boobs friends and strangers who revelled with me in the anticipation of waiting for a baby to arrive (being pregnant in the winter with bulky coats and sweaters over my belly meant that even at 9 months few people noticed that I was pregnant so I didn’t have a lot of people asking about my pregnancy). the wonder and magic of pregnancy – feeling baby’s kicks and rolls Rain’s utter delight in my pregnancy and growing belly and his excitement as the birth drew near a complication free pregnancy an informed pregnancy (knowing that I could decline diabetes screening and other tests, knowing that I could dialogue with my midwives about our hopes and expectations for the birth, knowing my body and intuitively understanding the process I was going through because I had experienced it twice before) access to midwifery care access to modern medicine like the routine 20 week ultrasound that re-affirmed that our baby was healthy, hospitals & specialists should we need them, and an ever-growing body of research about pregnancy and childbirth a healthy baby an amazing birth team and excellent prenatal care my beautiful pregnant belly Lest you think I am one of those annoying people who have perfect pregnancies with no discomforts, I did have my fair share of complaints. There was the debilitating all-day nausea that plagued me for the first 20+ weeks. There was the nasal congestion that started the first day and just got worse and worse until I was sleeping propped up on 3 pillows, spraying saline up my nose daily and wearing the oh-so-fashionable Breathe Right strips nightly (have you seen what those cost?!?). There was the middle of the night acid reflux – waking up because you have vomit at the back of your throat is not very fun, but it did give another reason for sleeping on 3 pillows. I also have to mention the restless leg syndrome, swollen cankles, bleeding gums, and unmentionables like hemorrhoids. But the worst? The worst was the awful SPD (symphysis pubis dysfunction) in the third trimester. SPD is caused by the hormone relaxin which softens the ligaments and causes the pelvis bones to begin widening and separating in preparation for birth. The last 10 or so weeks of my pregnancy I could barely walk as I suffered from sharp shooting and grinding pains in my pubic bone and SI joints. Rolling over in bed, getting up from the couch or out of bed (every 1.5 hours for a trip to the bathroom to pee) was agony. The muscles supporting my belly and the weight of my growing baby felt permanently strained. Essentially, I was in almost constant pain for the last trimester. Yet, I was even grateful for all of the pain and discomfort because it gave me the peace needed to accept that this is my last pregnancy. It confirmed for me that I am totally fine (ok, maybe 90% fine) with never being pregnant again. It reminded me that I am getting older and pregnancy isn’t as easy as...
Read MoreReconsidering Co-sleeping
As we wait for this baby to arrive, I find myself seriously considering a crib. This may not seem very inflammatory. After all, for the vast majority a crib isn’t even a consideration; it’s a necessary purchase that requires no thought beyond what sheets to choose. However, we co-slept (or bed-shared) with our two older children. A crib feels like venturing into strange territory. In fact, it even feels like a bit of a betrayal. Not that I have a problem with OTHER people using cribs at all. It’s just for me, it feels like denying this baby some of the wonderful things we were able to give our older kids. Furthermore, it goes against my personal instincts and parenting philosophies about keeping our kids close. In a lot of ways I love co-sleeping. I love the extra snuggles in the night. I love the extra hours of closeness with my children. I love being able to hear, see and feel that they are safe. I love waking up together. I love the early morning cuddles and giggles. I love that co-sleeping makes it easier for Aaron to be involved in night-time parenting. I love looking over and seeing one of my children cradled in Aaron’s arms. There are more practical benefits to co-sleeping beyond all that lovey-dovey stuff though. Many people, including Dr. James McKenna from University of Notre Dame, claim benefits to co-sleeping like the ease of maintaining the breastfeeding relationship and the increased sleep for mom. Long-term effects also suggested include higher self-esteem in adults who co-slept as children and a new book by Margot Sunderland, director of education at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London, “says the practice makes children more likely to grow up as calm, healthy adults.” There are even studies that say that practiced safely, co-sleeping decreases the incidence of SIDS. In my own experience, I saw first hand the ways that co-sleeping made breastfeeding easier. I could just roll over and nurse a baby while half asleep, without having to get up, walk down the hall, nurse in a chair and then carefully try to get baby back in the crib (without rousing her and having to start over). We learned quite quickly to disturb our babies as little as possible in the night if we wanted to maximize our sleep. A baby that falls asleep nursing in a side-lying position is much easier to keep asleep than one who needs to be moved and placed back into a crib. Plus, because I wasn’t getting up, walking around and turning on lights, it was easier for me to go back to sleep after a feed too. The problem is I’m beginning to feel that some of those gains in the early days set me up for some challenges later on. Some examples: 1. Eventually I began to dread climbing into bed at night. I would be tired (from a long day with a toddler who usually went to bed at the same time as us) and ready to sleep but as soon as I jostled the bed or baby smelled me beside her, it would be mean another feed before I could go to sleep. Whether it was 8:30, or 9:00, or 10:00, or midnight. I could not get into bed and just go to sleep. Even if baby had only nursed an hour ago, I was in for another feed before I could punch out. 2. Increased Night Wakings. Both of my kids spent their early days in a little bassinet type bed beside our bed and only moved into our bed when they outgrew their first bed, around 4 or 5 months old. Around this time, we noticed that they were developing skills for soothing themselves back to sleep. We would hear them rustle, re-settle, perhaps suck a finger or thumb and then go back to sleep. Around this time, hours of consecutive sleep were increasing from 2 (with a newborn) to 4 or 5. By the time both children were a year old, they were waking...
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