Friday, June 26, 2009

Placenta Brain

Lauren's phone rang today and the caller ID said "Lynda Barton-Kirch" (the midwife). The first thing that popped into Lauren's mind was "Oh my gosh, is it time?!?" Of course she immediately realized that her labor would not begin with the midwife calling HER to tell her it was time ha ha ha. When Lauren told Lynda the story, Lynda blamed it on Placenta Brain. Sounds like a good excuse :)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Wetting the bed

This post is NOT about Lolli, ha ha ha

It's about Lauren. Zach had to travel 2 1/2 hours away for work on Monday and stay overnight. Lolli and Lauren decided to tag along to take advantage of his hotel pool.

So anyway, Lauren peed before bed (around 10) and then woke up to pee around midnight. Apparently she got super comfy in the soft hotel bed after that, because the next thing she knew it was 5:45am and she was peeing IN THE BED!

She sprang up as quickly as is possible for a 38-weeker and ran to the bathroom. Luckily she was sleeping in terry cloth shorts, which apparently are super absorbant. She somehow managed not to leave a trail of pee on her path to the commode, despite not being able to turn the "faucet" off (is it possible to do a kegel while running?!). She made it to the toilet and continued to pee for what seemed like forever. Maybe she drank too much before bed?

So anyway, she cleaned herself up, changed clothes, and stayed awake until she got a BH contraction, just to make sure she hadn't mistaken amniotic fluid for pee. A couple weak contractions came and went and nothing leaked out of her, so she had to accept the fact that she's just a bed-wetter.

Friday, June 19, 2009

GBS Test Results

Lauren swabbed herself for Group Beta Strep at the home visit on Monday. Lynda sent it off to the lab and called Lauren with the results today - Negative! Woohoo! GBS isn't really a big deal, but testing positive would have meant deciding between doing nothing, doing a cleanse and re-testing, or just accepting antibiotics during early labor. Since the result was negative, Lauren doesn't have to do any decision-making at all! Awesome!

Lolli did great going to the chiropractor with Lauren this morning. She sits in her stroller and munches on M&Ms she buys from a machine right before going back to the room. She knows that the chiropractic care is becasue of the pregnancy so she says, "Poppy" a lot in the waiting room and the actual chiro room. She says "Whoa!" every time the chiro table goes up and down; it's hilarious! Dr. Nancy says Lauren's sacrum isn't buckled at all, which will make for a great, easy birth. Love it!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Home Visit & Pregnancy Update

The home visit went very well! Here's a brief (or maybe not-so-brief) re-cap for those of you who couldn't make it (we missed you!)

Midwife: Lynda Barton-Kirch, CNM (Certified Nurse Midwife) Lynda was a L&D nurse at Community North and Wishard for years before earning her Master's in midwifery. She's been involved in home births for over 13 years, including having one of her own babies at home.

Birth Assistant: Terry Blankenship Terry is a massage therapist, birth doula, hypnodoula, and she taught the Hypnobabies classes we took. Her main role will be to assist Lynda with whatever she needs, however she can also help Zach and I with our Hypnobabies stuff as a bonus!

Doula: Charity Reine Charity is a birth doula and her 3rd baby was born at home using Hypnobabies and having Terry as her Hypnodoula and Lynda as her midwife. She's also assisting Lynda in her office part-time this summer in order to eventually become a Birth Assistant and hopes to someday become a midwife herself!

That's our superstar birth team :)

The first part of the home visit was spent on introductions and a Q&A type of atmosphere with Lynda about home birth and with Terry about Hypnobabies. Then we went upstairs to the "birth suite" and Lynda took my blood pressure (98/64) and everyone got to listen to the heartbeat through the Doppler (high 120's to mid 130's, baby was calm). She didn't even bother measuring my fundus since at this point it has so much to do with baby's position that it can very by as much as 8cm just depending on how baby lays from 1 minute to the next! She's able to tell through palpation that fluid levels are fine, which we like to hear!

Then we went through the list of home birth supplies we've collected (towels, receiving blankets, peroxide, fish net, witch hazel, heating pad... lots of fun stuff) and showed Lynda where everything is being stored so she won't have to ask during the birthing time. She gave us a few supplies (sealed in sterile packaging of course) like the cord clamp (sooooo cute), bulb syringe, gloves and whatnot. Then we showed her around the rest of the house and made sure to point out the washer and dryer (they'll start a load before they leave, woohoo!).

After we all came downstairs Lynda gave me the Group Beta Strep kit and I swabbed myself (which was definitely nice than having to undress to let someone else do it when I'm totally capable!). We'll get those results sometime this week. If it's positive, I can opt to have an IV or injection of antibiotics once the birthing time is coming, or I can do a cleanse to get rid of the bacteria and test again. And we turned in our consent forms for baby care in the first 48 hours (in case anyone is curious, we're consenting to the vitamin k injection but refusing the antibiotics in baby's eyes, as those are to prevent infections in case mom has an STD, but I am STD-free, woohoo! We'll also be doing the standard metabolic screen at 48 hours).

That's really all there was to it! I'll be 37 weeks tomorrow (Wednesday), so we've got the green light to go ahead and get to birthing whenever baby is ready. Lynda attends home birth up to 43 weeks gestation, although I *doubt* I'll go that long. Lolli was born at 40 weeks, 4 days, not that that really means anything at all! Zach and I have a concert to go to in Cincinnati on June 29th, and I don't wanna miss it, so I don't plan to give birth before I hit 39 weeks :) Ha ha, we'll see what baby says about that. Our birth tub should come sometime in the next 2 weeks!

So anyway, everything is going really well and is as normal as can be. We got our house all in order and all of our big projects out of the way and we feel so prepared for the birth and having a newborn (well, as prepared as anyone can be!). I'm getting very sappy at the thought of having a tiny baby again; just the thought of holding her little baby booty makes me melt :)

HypnoBabies

Zach and I just finished up our 6-week Hypnobabies class. Since most of you probably don't know what Hypnobabies is all about (we didn't before this pregnancy!) here's a little info if you're interested in learning about what'll be going on during the Birthing Time. We've got our "birth suite" upstairs, so friends and family are welcome to come to the house and hang out downstairs during the birthing time without worry of disrupting me. It'll probably be kind of the same scenario as we had at the hospital for Lolli's birth, with people coming in to visit in short shifts during the birthing time and in the waiting room (which is our downstairs!) for the rest of the time. We realize not everyone may be able to make it depending on when baby decides to be born, but we really hope to have family and close friends here to meet the newest family member when she arrives :)

http://www.hypnobabies.com/
What is Hypnobabies" Eyes-Open Childbirth Hypnosis"?
Eyes-Open Childbirth Hypnosis is one of the excellent techniques that sets Hypnobabies apart from other natural childbirth programs and helps our Hypno-Moms to truly enjoy childbirth. It originally comes from master hypnotist Gerald Kein’s exploration of exactly what women wanted in childbirth as he sat down with a group of them and they gave him their invaluable feedback.. “I don’t want to be relegated to a hospital bed, only lying down to maintain my relaxation and focus! When I’m giving birth, I don’t want drugs, and I want to be physically comfortable doing what comes naturally! I want to be able to move around freely, change positions, eat, drink, communicate, shower, squat and as I do, I want to be completely relaxed, calm, confident and completely comfortable!” Not asking too much, did they?

Actually, NO. Gerald Kein set about to create exactly what they asked him to - a way for women to use hypnotic childbirth while being supremely mobile, able to easily move into upright positions that aided in the descent and position of the baby during birthing, while still allowing the mother to enjoy childbirth comfortably. These hypnosis suggestions were built right into his Painless Childbirth scripts, reinforced many times and very powerfully created exactly that. He called it, “Eyes-Open Childbirth Hypnosis” and we decided to use it in Hypnobabies, which Gerry is very proud of, and the rest is.history.

Eyes-open, self-hypnosis the way Hypnobabies teaches it, gives mom all the control over her hypnosis during her birthing time with a drop of her finger literally. Practicing our finger-drop/eyes-open childbirth hypnosis technique for instant self-hypnosis and anesthesia, allows you to be mobile and even open your eyes throughout your birthing time, and not be rendered dependent upon passively listening to deep relaxation and guided imagery, which has been a major concern of many expectant mothers who have done other natural childbirth programs.

Why choose a natural, easier birth using Hynobabies? The benefits are many:
● The Hypno-mom will use fewer drugs or no drugs, which means less risk of side effects for mother and baby, due to elimination of the Fear/Tension/Pain Syndrome, and using post-hypnotic suggestions.
● Most Hypno-mothers have shorter labors since there is less resistance of the birthing muscles when pain and fear are minimized or eliminated.
● The birthing woman generally has much more energy throughout first and second stage, due to a total relaxation throughout the birthing process.
● The birthing environment is much more calm and peaceful when the natural childbirth mother is comfortable.
● Breech and posterior babies can be turned using hypnosis.
● Blood pressure, heart rate, and temperature can be lowered and nausea, back and hip pain eliminated with hypnosis during pregnancy and labor.
● There are fewer interventions for failure to progress and therefore fewer fetal and maternal complications during labor.
● The deep relaxation in Hypnobabies sessions has also helped many a nervous birth partner to enjoy their partner's pregnancy and childbirth, and the skills that the Hypno-couple learns for relaxation and hypnosis will benefit them for the rest of their lives.
● Our Hypno-couples are "deprogrammed" from the usual negativity of childbirth stories and scenarios they've always heard, by way of training in Hypnobabies classes and audio CDs which have positive messages and hypnotic suggestions. This automatically allows for a positive attitude and much more confidence in birthing.

How you can assist the Hypno-family
We are all very suggestible and the words we use have specific connotations to them. Many of the words commonly used regarding labor and birth have negative associations to them in the minds oif our expectant mothers, so we have changed some of them to create a positive association. If you can use them as well, it would be very helpful and very much appreciated.
*Birthing Time: in place of “labor”
*Pressure Wave: in place of “contraction” or “labor pain”
*Pressure and Comfort: We do not use the word “pain” at any time; we instead use “pressure” and we create comfort with our minds. Please don’t ask her if she’s in pain, since our Hypno-mom is in hypnosis and the mere suggestion of pain could cause it to happen!
*Birthing: Our word for “delivery”; our aim is a gentle, confident birthing, not for someone to intrusively “deliver” the baby

Monday, June 15, 2009

Preparation!

Zach, Lauren and Lolli spent the past week getting the house all ready for baby. This meant rearranging the bedroom to fit: a king-size bed, a full-sized crib, a dresser, a chest, 2 night stands, a dog bed, a co-sleeper attachment, and an Amby baby hammock. Whew! They also organized Zach's office to fit the futon in there, which meant moving one of his desks to the loft and getting rid of Lauren's old computer cart. Then they set up the twin bed in the birthing room and hung affirmations on the wall. All of the birth supplies are organized in a dresser, just waiting to be needed! The upstairs bathrooms got a new massaging showerhead as well as a new shower curtain liner. The garage was cleaned out and de-junked. As of this morning, the entire house is clean, all at once - they even scrubbed out the fridge and replaced an old toilet seat. All of Poppy's sheets, clothes, blankets and prefolds are washed and ready to go. As soon as her diaper covers arrive, everything will be complete! But don't come yet, little baby, because Zach and Lauren are going to a concert in Cincinnati in 2 weeks!