The temporary organ

One of the many things that didn't even cross my mind when I had my son was anything that had to do with the Placenta. The extent of my knowledge of this marvelous organ that we grow to nourish our babies for their gestation was basically "Oh, yeah I know what that is, it's this big thing that feeds the baby." and that it can weigh anywhere from 5 to 8 lbs. Well I was in for a knowledge shock and am now going to be one of the crazy moms who ingests the placenta after this one is born. I know what you thinking. I'm not frying it or baking it in the kitchen with onions and then noshing on it that way. I'm not that far gone down the natural path yet.

For starters, I have heard stories about what midwives did with them after births. They were usually taken home and used as fertilizer in the garden or put in the compost pile. I've read stories written by children who were used to seeing one in the fridge after their mom attended a birth.

Some people plant trees or rose bushes with the Placenta at the bottom of the hole, which then fertilizes the plant and they have a nice plant to honor their baby with.  Then I heard of people who cook them and eat them after the baby is born. (blegh! All I'm picturing is something like overcooked liver.) What I have decided to go with though is called "Placenta Encapsulation".  This is becoming a very common practice with some women. The Placenta is taken, cooked, dried, ground up, and put into pills capsules. Which are then taken by the mother.
You are probably wondering "What's the big deal about the Placenta?" , "EWWWW!!"  or both.
The big deal is that the Placenta is full of hormones!! Good ones! Ones that have tons of women saying that it helped them with Post Partum Depression or helped them avoid it completely. They also are beneficial to women who are in menopausal years.
The proof is in our mammal companions. All female mammals eat the placenta after giving birth, even herbivors.  Most scientists believed that this was just to clean up the site of the birth, until they noticed they weren't eating anything else but the placenta. So, why the Placenta? There must be something there if they are eating it.
This has kind of become a fascination with me. Some people have started ritualistic things surrounding the placenta. There is a book called "The lost Chaukra" that is about the placenta. People do placental imprints before they are ingested. (The placenta is blotted with paint and pressed on a sheet of paper leaving an impression.) and there is even a green smoothie recipe that I've found that is placenta nourishing. (recipe at bottom).
When I first mentioned to my husband that I had just read something about Placenta encapsulation, he was doing the dishes. He stopped dead and said 'What?" I repeated myself and he then proceeded to tell me it sounded like something out of a Sci-fi movie. "We're going to encapsulate the placenta now Captain." So it kinda became something that I would say creepily just to annoy him, like in those horror movies where the murderer is using an echo to torture the victim.  After he got over the heebie-jeebie part and he realised that I was seriously considering having this done, he started to ask about it. Now mind you, I am not doing it myself, some women diy it in their kitchen after having the baby. It is a service my midwives offer and I am having them do it. They take it and prepare it and I get the pills afterward. My husband started asking things like: "They aren't doing it in our kitchen, are they?!"
"Do I have to look at it?"
"I bet it's going to taste funny."
"I'm not kissing you after you take them, just so you know."
Most of which I just laugh the answer out. To be honest though, I'm looking forward to reaping the benefits of this. I didn't suffer from severe PPD, but it was enough to make me feel crazy.
As I thought about it more, the placenta has almost a fascinating power to it. Truly. None of us would be here without one. If something goes wrong with it at any point during the pregnancy, the baby could die, we the moms could die or both. This is an organ that binds itself to us, filters our blood and nourishes our baby. Both mother and child are connected to it for a small period of our lives, but it plays such an important role. Doctors worry about it's health during your pregnancy and towards the end of our pregnancies we may also start to worry about it.
I could go on, but I'm going to stop here. (Enough with the Placenta already, geesh!)

Healthy Placenta Smoothie:

1 green apple
3 Broccili stems
1 handful sprouts
1 cucumber
3 kale leaves

zip it through until smooth.

Placenta Ritual Story
Placenta Benefits and Info

TTFN!

A missed med

Just a quick entry on a drug that I forgot to add to my previous entry.  It's called Cytotec. It is mostly in inductions, but the shocking thing is that is it is not approved by the FDA  for use in inductions. So there isn't a certain amount that is recommended safe, it is whatever dosage the doctor decides to use. (How they determine this, I don't know, but I have a feeling it's through trial and error.) Pitocin is the most widely recognized drug used during labor to help with inductions and with labor, the trouble with Pitocin is that if you aren't near you due date and you are "ripe" (meaning the cervix is soft instead of hard) Pitocin doesn't work effectively.
Cytotec has had mixed results with most of the inductions. The trouble is that it causes contractions that are so hard, it is responsible for uterine ruptures of healthy uterus', but since this doesn't happen with every induction doctors still use it and it hasn't been pulled. 

Induced and Seduced: a Mothering Magazine article

Don't burst my Bubble

I'm probably insane for sitting and writing this when I have so much else to do, oh well.

I was reading some stories and articles online about birth and other things. I'm a hopeless addict to reading whatever I can get my hands on now. I came across a discussion board that someone had posted just asking others opinions as to how they deal with negativity when they tell people that they have had or are planning a home birth/natural birth?  She then went on to talk about how she has been yelled at by people and accused of calling women who have had hospital births "weak" or "a lesser women".  I pondered this.  A few days previous I had read an article about a new Phobia that is taking ground in our country.   Tocophobia: The fear of Childbirth.<---- (this is a link so click on it)
Then my mind just started putting some things together. Now granted this is just my opinion as I am not a medical professional of any kind, my parents just taught me to think and rationalize (I probably do it too much sometimes, but hey.) Then today, when I signed on to check my e-mail this popped up in the News stories (also a link if you want to read it) Many still in awe of Christmas Miracle baby.....

That got me going.

Not to mean any offense to that family, but to be honest I don't see why people are still in awe of it. She was killed by a medical mistake (they slipped giving her the epidural and it went into her blood stream) and brought back by quick thinking/acting medical staff.  She would of never been put in that situation in the first place if we weren't so blase about medications and what could go wrong.

In response to the arguments that this person in the forum talked about, that made me wonder. She had posted that she was curious if the women yelling at her did, deep down inside, feel like a lesser women because they had a medicated/ c-section. I started to think about how, even though my sons birth was a normal/routine hospital birth, that how for some it is tramatic or can be very tramatising.  I thought of my friend and how her s-i-l had a series of botched epidurals leaving her scarred emotionally, because she was not prepared for natural childbirth. I thought of my mom and the millions of others who had been given episiotomies and those who had severe tears and infections because of it.  Being told while you are in labor that you are not dilating fast enough and being threatened with a possible c-section, being told while you are pushing that you aren't pushing efficiently enough or hard enough, and then the high post-partum mortality rate (New moms at Risk).
It's no wonder that there is a new recognized phobia that involves child birth.
I feel so bad for these women who for just walking near a maternity clothing store strikes fear into their very hearts. They have been frightened out of one of the greatest gift that women can be given in her lifetime and that is to have children and be unconditionally loved by them.  Now having had my son, I cannot imagine how empty my life was before him and this makes me sad for these girls/women that are terrified of giving birth.

This brings me around to my title. "Don't Burst my Bubble".  Planning a home birth and being comfortable about it when people question you openly or try to frighten you about "The Terrors" of what can go wrong in birth, involves having a strong bubble. It's not that I don't know what can go wrong in birth and yes I know women died in childbirth when they were birthing at home, but I also know that the hospital mortality rate is just as bad as the homebirth rap was a hundred years ago. It's just that no one is talking about it.
What does it take to build up a bubble like this? Lots of reading! (I'm not kidding!!!) Online articles, discussion forums, webisodes, videos, movies, and books (real ones!).  Most of what is available today for an want-to-be-informed women was hard to find or even hear about when my mom and grandmother were pregnant. (Yes, it was there.)  It is through reading just about anything and questioning things, not taking anything for granted. Then being armed with all this knowledge, I am able to go out into the world and say "I AM PLANNING A HOME BIRTH!!! AND I AM NOT SCARED!!"

TTFN

Book review and a Fascinating Finding

  So I finally finished reading "Home Birth an Invitation and a Guide". It's so sad that it took me almost three weeks and it's this skinny little book. Oh well, it's life while being pregnant and having a two year old as well. I have to say that it was okay. She offers good advice in it and there are some fantastic quotes here and there, but overall I don't think I would recommend it as a need to read. It might be a good starter book for those who aren't sure if home birth is for them. Alice Gilgoff does have some good stories in there as well as her own birth stories. I don't know if the book has been updated by her to add in birthing pools for home births. The one I read was an older one and it was about birthing in your own home. No mention of pools. Though for those who don't like the idea of a water birth, that might be fine. So like I said above, good book, but not great.
I recently started reading Ina May Gaskin's book "A Guide to Child Birth" and I have to say so far I love it. It was one of the recommend readings by my midwives and I can see why. The amount of love that she puts out in the forward of the book was beautiful. The book is done in two parts. Part One is dedicated to birth stories (which really you can't get enough of sometimes). Not horror ones either, they are just honest birth stories written by women who had natural births and just point blank how it was emotionally and physically. There are some in there that have more than one birth story as to create a comparison. They all take place on "The Farm Midwifery Center" where Gaskin worked as a midwife. 
Part two is the book part, where she talks about birth and gives advice. I haven't finished it yet, but I have to say that the topic she picked for her first chapter blew me away. It created a train of thoughts that have left me wondering about my sons birth and many many other things. She talks about the importance of relaxation, having people, and being in a place that you are completely comfortable with. The reason why she brings this up, is that it plays a major part in labor and delivery. You wouldn't think it would, but it does. She goes on to talk about something that I have heard of before, but never given any real thought to: Halted Labors and Undilation. Both are caused by the mother not being comfortable in the situation she is in while in labor. Gaskin goes on to say that when she was checking a mother she felt the mother undilate from an 8 to a 6. I know this sounds crazy, but think about it. When you are uncomfortable or tense, your muscles tense up and become rigid. The Uterus and Cervix are muscles, so it only makes sense that when you are uncomfortable and tense that they would tense up as well.
This blew me away and created streaming questions through my mind. Gaskin had to do a lot of research on this, since most Doctors and OB's have never heard or recognized this happening. She found evidence of it that predated hospitals, back when women were delivering at home with midwifes or the family Doctor. She also found that in modern hospitals, despite what the nurse who checks you may say, what the doctor finds when he/she checks is written down and is fact. Now, here is my stream of thoughts on this matter.
A women goes into labor not knowing how far she is dilated, they drive to the hospital, have to be checked, she has to change into her gown, be hooked up to all the monitors, and then checked. All of that can be an uncomfortable, adrenaline filled, tense situation. She is now in a place that is unfamiliar, despite how pretty the room is. The machines are beeping, the smells are different, and there is a nurse coming in about every hour to check her progress. It might take her a while to relax fully, if at all. Then we come to where what adds stress to the labor. The mother is told by the nurses she is not dilating quick enough and that they are going to start pitocin. Pitocin makes the contractions harder and more painful, she then feels frightened by the pain that she may of been able to handle beforehand. She is then given an epidural to block the pain. This relaxes her a little, but like it did me, she might feel like a failure at being able to handle such a natural thing. When she is fully dilated, the doctors and nurses come in and the pushing begins. People she is not used to having around her, that she may never see again. She is told to push push push push push. After an hour, she is told she is not pushing efficiently and will have to have a C-section or she pushes and the baby is born.
This is on average what birth is like in hospitals. After reading it,  knowing how high the C-section rate is in this country and now having been introduced to the idea of undilation and halted labors. You wonder, how many of those C-sections were a result of stress on the mothers part? How many of them were really necessary? The more you fear labor, the more it hurts, the more it hurts, the more afraid you let yourself get, the more stress you have, the more tense you get, etc. 
This all snowballed in my mind and then I thought of my sons birth. I knew I was in labor because my water had broken. We had to drive to the hospital, after chipping at the ice on our frozen car. I remember not feeling any contractions while we were driving there and then not really until we were in our room. So now I am wondering "Did my labor halt? Did I undilate due to the conditions and stress of having to get to the hospital?" Because when they checked me I was only a 3. Curiouser and Curiouser.

I don't want to harp on and on about it, but it is something that now fascinates me and I really cannot wait to finish reading this book.  If you want to read more about Gaskin and her works, I've included a link below.
Ina May Gaskin

TTFN!!

Horrors

I am dedicating this entry to all the horrors that have been developed and were imposed/used on women who were pregnant or in labor. I am going to state here that despite everything else, I am grateful for the advances in medical procedure that have saved many mothers and babies lives. My cousin and her daughter might not be here without them.

I'm going to start with the one that I have to say shocked me the most. It was something that was introduced and used around the time my Great-Grandmother was in childbearing years and continued until my Grandmother was in childbearing years. Many people have never heard of it, only know of it through old horror stories, or actually had a family member endure it.  I am talking about the "Twilight Sleep". The modern use of the word speaks of people who are sleep deprived, meaning going for more than a day on average without sleep. The lesser known use speaks of the morphine and drug induced state that women were put into when they were having their babies. At the time this was hailed as a medical breakthrough to "Save" women from the pain of childbirth. What these women and their husbands didn't know (since husbands were not allowed into the birth room) is that the side effects consisted of one to three days of confinement for the women afterward. While they were in this "healing" period (what was told to the husbands) women were often tied down to their gurney while the drugs wore off. The Doctors and Nurses would use sheepskin restraints so as to not leave any marks on the hands and feet of the women.  During this period of recovery, the women would often scream, writhe around, and be in pure hysterics since they were not in control of themselves. They were often kept in deplorable conditions as well. They would often be laying in their own soiled sheets for hours if not a day or two.  When the medication had left the system, the mothers often returned to their normal state with no memories of this hysterical sleep or of having had the baby.
Wikipedia "Twilight Sleep"  C-sections and Twilight Sleep  A history of Pail Relief  And article suggesting restriction of use

I first heard about Twilight Sleep when I watched "The Business of Being Born". I think the word SHOCK is putting it mildly. I could never imagine not remembering giving birth and that the idea of being tied down to a bed and left for days leaves me without words. This was deplorable to me and I am so grateful that it is no longer in practice.

This second Horror didn't affect the mothers as much as it affected the babies. The drug Thalidomide was used in the 40's and 50's to help combat morning sickness. Since it was given to the mothers when the baby is still considered an embryo and in it's crucial physical developmental months. It caused thousands of babies to be born with severe deformities in their limbs. Most were born without Arms and Legs.  The unfortunate fact is that this is the harsh truth of what can happen if Medications are not tested properly before being administered. In our ignorant haste of wanting an answer we made our children suffer with these deformities.

Sadly, Thalidomide is still being used is parts of the world. Babies are still being born without limbs and are even dying because of their deformities.  
Thalidomide Drug information    The Recent Cases

Also during this time, Doctors had taken to giving pregnant women routine Pelvic X-rays. To see whether or not they could birth the child they were carrying. This of course was giving the babies cancer. So they stopped doing that. Our poor children. It blows my mind, how much was done. When thanks to our lovely pelvic bones and uterus' our species has thrived despite medical advances.  There are some stock movie clips of pregnant mothers getting the x-ray done. I have searched online and cannot find anything so far.

I'm sure you are probably thinking by now that, well that was back before they did safe studies and they don't have problems like that anymore. I wish I could say that they stopped using medications that caused such tramatic effects on mother and child, but I can't.

The most recent medical mishap is the use of Misoprostol in labor. It was one of the many drugs given to a mother who was in labor or being induced. It was also being used on women who were trying to have a V-Bac (Vaginal Birth after Cesarean). What was happening is that it was causing hard contractions and in turn was causing Uterine Ruptures. This is every OB's worst nightmare and fear. A uterine rupture is just that, it means the uterus has split open. This makes an emergency c-section mandatory and unfortunately when they were using this drug, the mortality rate was sky high.   Wikipedia

You are probably hoping this was in the 80's and early 90's. This drug was introduced in 1999 and stopped use in 2000.

The last is probably the saddest for me and the most hidden. It is the High Infant and Mother mortality rate in the days after the mother is sent home from the hospital. It is swept under the rug and hidden by a simple flaw in our death certificates. They do not ask if the deceased was pregnant or had been pregnant at or around the time of death. Mothers are going home after having their babies and hemorrhaging to death within the first week of postpartum or from other complications.  While I was pregnant two mothers died in labor due to hemorrhage. Yet there is no mention if any by media or magazines about what happens to mothers when they come home from the hospital. Our country, for all it's vast medical machinery, has overlooked one very important detail and that is postpartum care. Being sent home and then not being see by a Doctor until 6 weeks after is a high risk. Other countries have nurses that visit the new mom weekly or daily if she had complications. Ours have none.  A wonderful author and activist in the home birthing movement wrote about it.  Masking Maternal Mortality


Childbirth is the one thing that is going to happen to every women at some point in her life. It can be a wonderful event and it can also be out of a horror movie. Like I said at the top I am grateful for all the advances in medical procedure. But the trouble is that it all came at a very great cost to some. One of my biggest things with Childbirthing today is that there is still a want to be saved from the pain. After everything that has gone wrong, we still want to be saved from having our own children.
Being in labor is the only time when you are being given drugs in doses that have not been really tested for long term effects on the infant. With most medication, your Doctor tells you what it is, what it does, and the side effects. As part of the millions of women who give birth in America, I didn't know what the side effects were of the medicines being given to me in childbirth. I learned about them afterward and I didn't need to go much further than Wikipedia to feel outraged. The doses given are safe for adults. These doses are so high that they flow through the placenta and into our baby. What effect is it having on them? Some have pointed to the ever mysterious Autism, others point to basic learning disabilities, and mental retardation. Most babies are fine, but others are not.

I don't want to end this on a preachy note. I just want to make anyone who reads this think. I hope you learned something and I will try to write something less morbid for my next one.

Expectant Fathering

Since we've decided to do a homebirth, my husband has been obsessed about one thing in particular. The birthing pool. When I was in labor with my son, he just kinda sat around and didn't do much except hold my hand and rub my back. When I was pushing he held one of my legs, until he couldn't bear to watch anymore (He said it looked like the head was going to just pop off.) Then he held my hand and helped urge me on.
Now since most of that isn't going to be happening, (at least the holding my leg and telling me when to push), he has been obsessing about the birthing pool.  He gets so specific it's makes me laugh. "How much does it weigh? How do I fill it/empty it? Where should we put it?" and his favorite "When do I start to fill it?"  I'm glad in some ways that he has something like this to think about rather than freaking out about how far my contractions are or if I'm doing ok. He can fall back on the tub and use that to help deal with me being in labor (and making my disgruntled cow noises). 
Other than the tub, there isn't much else that concerns him about the birth apart from having to purchase the birth kit and anything that is involved with the tub (renting, pool liner, and pump equipment.) The other day he was talking about it and asking whether I wanted towels or a tarp underneath it, in case any water spills. Having not given it much thought, I just shrugged and said it didn't matter, whichever he thought was best. He got this look on his face and said "This is important stuff here, I need to know which you would prefer."  I just grinned and tried to hold back a giggle. I just responded that I was going to be a little too preoccupied to have a preference. Then that started the whole parade of questions "Well can you at least tell me when I should start to fill it?"  "I don't know dear, probably when I hit transition would be a good time." "How do I know your in transition??"::Frantic tone::  "You can ask the midwives or you can just go by the noises I'll be making." ::puzzled look::  ::me sighing:: "You'll know when, someone will tell you that it's time." "I just don't want it sitting there full and then being cold when you really need it." and so it goes. We've had this conversation a few times already and since it's starting to get closer, the frantic pitch is added in more and more of the questions. 
It's a good thing men don't have babies. They would pass out at the first sign of labor but, it would change how Tool World in Lowe's looks. Saws, Hammers, Umbilical cord cutters, epidural needles, pools and accessories....etc. There would be at least twenty styles of each.
So like I said above, I'm glad he has the pool to help save me from his bits of insanity. :o)
TTFN

Grapefruit, Dilemmas, and Affirmations

">
I love grapefruit, if love is even a strong enough word for the cravings I am getting for it. I don't even have to be around a grapefruit to want it. Just thinking the word "Grapefruit" sends me into one of Pavloves response tests. I can't seem to survive the day without eating at least one, some days I have to have two. Which is ridiculous even for me. I guess I should be grateful that I'm not craving Cadbury chocolate bars, tons of coffee, or pickles and peanut butter. I just find it funny where some women want very weird things in the middle of the night, I am wanting fruit. Not even weird fruit, just regular Ruby Red Grapefruits. I am happy that my cravings took a healthy turn though. In the beginning it was mostly Tang and Salt and Vinegar chips. Not Lays mind you, those didn't have enough bite. I wanted the Archer Farms Kettle Cooked ones from Target. Those have bite, enough to make my non-pregnant self stop after about 20 chips. My pregnant self wasn't satisfied after half a bag, but I made myself stop and put it away. Sometimes my husband had to do it for me, because I didn't want too. (Now that's love right there. Most men in their right minds don't come between pregnant women and their cravings.)

My Dilemmas that have started recently are all revolving around the upcoming birth. They don't have to do with the birth itself, that I know I can handle. It's all the unknowns that are boggling my mind into headaches. The not knowing how I am going to be during a natural birth. Am I going to be vocal? Am I going to yell at everyone near me? Am I going to be quiet? Am I going to want to be naked or clothed? These wouldn't be causing me so much stress, except for one issue. I have a two, going to be three, year old. He is normally very well behaved and doesn't demand too much attention. BUT as most mothers with small kids know, as soon as something is going on, they want attention, they freak out about silly things, etc. So my plan was to have my mom and mother in law here to help with my demanding son.
This is where the above questions are starting to cause me distress. Only now they are followed with "Do I feel comfortable being naked around them? Are they going to be comfortable with me being naked around them? Will I feel comfortable letting out loud gut deep cow noises around them? Am I going to be able to handle having them around? Are they going to be able to handle being around each other while I am labor?" etc.  It's enough to drive anyone mad. I mentioned this issue at my most recent appointment and one of my midwifes offered the idea of having them staged nearby so I could call them if I need them or just call them when the baby is here. That's the other dilemma, I don't know when I am going to go into labor or how fast the labor will progress.  I'm trying to reach an answer now, so that when the time comes I won't have to think about it or worry about it. I'm going to be a bit preoccupied that day and I'm sure thinking straight isn't going to be happening.  ::sigh:: Of course no one has an answer, except for "Just go with what you feel comfortable with.". Which is great, but really a "Yes" or "No" would help more or if some wise being would just tell me. Oh well.

I started listening to the Hypno-Birthing Rainbow affirmations cd this afternoon. I still have to reread the book, but I figured listening to the cd now would help. I listened to it while I took a walk this afternoon (BRRR) to just give it a real listen to (without falling asleep) to decide if I really like it or if I want to borrow the Hypno-Babies cd's from my friend (who is due around the same time I am). I like it, but I'm not big on the voice of the lady who is talking on it. Gratefully my aunt (who I borrowed them from) had the same issue and has three of the same cds. So I'll just listen to each one until I find one that I like enough to use daily. I might still borrow the Hypno-babies cds just because I can and just to see if I like them more. Can't get enough types of relaxation techniques at this point, gotta find something to like and go with. :o)  Really I think any woman who is pregnant should listen to affirmations and relaxation techniques, they really are calming and help eliminate the fear of "I can't do this! I'm a wuss!" because really our bodies are designed to give birth. Our species wouldn't of survived if we weren't.

TTFN!