I'm sorry that I have missed two weeks of writing this journal now, and I can tell you once I got out of the habit it took longer to get back into it! It didn't help that I had had a touch of depression and I find it really hard to write while I'm down. I can write plenty about how I felt, just not when I'm feeling it if that makes sense. I'm calling this my nineteen week journal, but I'm in truth closer to twenty weeks, but I figured I'd squeeze two entries in this week!
I ended up getting that horrid flu that my son and husband had. It hit me on a Monday morning. All I can say is thank God that my son has a little potty because when it hit I had both diarrhea and vomiting simultaneously. I must have made quite a picture sitting on the toilet while throwing up into a tiny potty as well! In the meantime one of us had left the closet door open (one of the few things Tommy hasn't figured out how to get into yet) and he found a little box of razor blades in there. So I'm in the middle of getting very sick and I look up and my son is playing with razor blades! Not the shaving kind, but the little rectangular kind you use for crafts and things. Fortunately he actually obeyed me when I calmly said, "Tommy, can you bring that to Mommy?" He walked right over and handed them to me. Whew! But the day went downhill from there. Like Tommy I couldn't keep down any fluid at all. I didn't even attempt to eat. I was trying to drink his pedialyte (that stuff really tastes awful), but I couldn't even keep one sip of that down. For every sip I took I threw up at least two full cups of bile.
I very quickly became dehydrated and I began having contractions in the early afternoon. They just kept getting stronger so I called my OB to ask when I should worry enough to go to the hospital. I knew that I needed to get fluids! I had to wait a full hour to even get through to the receptionist. I have no idea why they weren't answering their phones. Then I had to leave a message for the on call doctor because mine wasn't in that day. She finally called me back and was very concerned. She suggested trying to get fluids in me again and if I didn't keep them down I should head in to the ER or urgent care. I remembered that I had some phenergan left over from an ER visit last Labor Day. I was in for severe abdominal pains that they never found a reason for, but I was in so much pain I was severely nauseous so they gave me some phenergan suppositories (phenergan is an anti-nausea medication). She suggested I take one of those and try my hardest to keep it in, which with diarrhea is difficult! And then I was to take two immodium capsules (I had those at home) and if I didn't keep that down she wanted me to come in immediately. Fortunately Tommy had just gone down for a nap right before the doctor called so I followed her orders. I took the phenergan and fought hard and managed to keep it in ten full minutes! It actually starts working fairly quickly and I was feeling a little relief from the nausea. Then I drank just a sip of pedialyte to swallow the two immodium capsules (I still don't know how I swallowed them with that little fluids, but I did) and I laid down to nap. Tommy cooperated perfectly and slept about two hours which allowed me to get some rest. Without that sleep I don't think I would have been able to keep down the immodium, but thankfully I did and when I woke I felt a little better. I had stopped losing fluids in one way after that! I wasn't able to drink very much at all for the rest of the day, but the contractions didn't get any worse at least.
I ended up with diarrhea and on and off nausea for the rest of the week. Fortunately I wasn't vomiting often after that first day. It was back to the regular morning sickness occasional throwing up which is usually due to a bad smell such as dirty diapers! But after the bad day of nausea hits with this flu you just get all over pains. I felt like I'd been run over repeatedly! Every muscle in my body ached including the tendons in my fingers. I had a horrible stiff neck and back and couldn't turn my head or bend over at all. This made taking care of Tommy very difficult, but I had no help with that either. I have no family nearby and I couldn't ask one of my friends with kids because they would wind up getting sick! I wouldn't wish this flu on anyone. It was a full week before I felt even partially recovered, and close to two weeks after I still wasn't able to eat properly. I was hungry, but when I saw food it felt like I got a knot in my throat and I just didn't want to eat anything. It wasn't nausea, but it was very strange. Tom said that the same thing had happened to him and that it was the very tail end of this flu. It made me very weak, and I also started to get depressed. My newly clean living and dining rooms ended up in complete shambles again. The kitchen was a disaster again. It's amazing how much work you do without even thinking about it, and how you don't notice until you don't do it! I had all three of us messing things up and no one cleaning up anything and a messy house does really depress me. I was also just completely drained of energy for the longest time and I had a real hard time getting back into normal routines and activities.
The worst part of the flu, aside from the obvious, was actually emotional. At the height of my illness and dehydration scare I, of course, wasn't nursing Tommy freely. For about a week I only nursed him when he reached a desperation point, or when distracting him in some other way required more effort than nursing. This meant that for the most part he nursed two to four times a day, mainly before his naps and at bedtime. Nursing him also gave me a sour stomach and headache. It is as if my body was telling me that I just didn't have the resources to be making milk. Unfortunately at not quite twenty-one months of age Tommy isn't mentally or emotionally prepared to deal with this. He acted out in every way he could because he was confused and upset. And let me tell you we discovered what kind of a temper this sweet little boy has! I won't go into a lot of detail, but let's just say I'm down quite a few glasses and bowls from a few dishwasher incidents, and some furniture got a little lesson on what it's like to be the object Tommy chooses to get his anger out on! It was a very frustrating week and a half or so. As I am feeling better and able to devote more time and attention to him he has settled back to his normal self.
It was also hard on me because I felt so alone. I have no family near and I desperately miss that support and company. My mother and I especially are very close. My parents were also on the road so this meant I couldn't even call them to get verbal support. There are times in life when even a grown woman needs her mommy! I also don't have a ton of close friends around here. I worked too many long hours before I was pregnant so I didn't get to know many people after moving here aside from co-workers and I had little in common with most of them. I have met several wonderful mothers since joining La Leche League and a playgroup, but I didn't feel that I could call on them when I was sick because they had babies to look after as well. In addition Tom unfortunately has been really bogged down at work with a big move his company is doing. He's a UNIX systems administrator and they are moving all their hardware from one building to another. The group he is in not only has to do the physical moving and resetting up of all the UNIX machines, but they also have to do it without having any downtime (the company he works at hosts some major e-commerce sites) so that meant a lot of odd hours in addition to working a regular day. It couldn't have come at a worse time! He really couldn't request time off either. They have a small staff and the stress level is high at his office right now because of the extreme drop in the company's stock. One person in his department was fired last week and there are rumors of more layoffs to come. With the difficult time I had we actually seriously discussed relocating closer to family if he were to lose his job. Things seem a little better now, but I do still want to move to where my parents choose to retire when they finally do that. They will be making that decision in about two years most likely. Tom isn't completely against the idea at this point.
Well on to the pregnancy! I decided to reschedule my midwife appointment for two weeks later since I was supposed to be getting a copy of my records at my OB appointment the week after my original midwife appointment was scheduled. I did get those records and was disappointed to see it was just a one page summary sheet that really didn't give much information. It has a list of each visit including my weight and blood pressure, fundal height, fetal heart rate, urine test (which was always 0/0 for protein and sugar except a few weeks where I had a trace amount of protein). There were some notes occasionally, but I recall many things that the OB didn't indicate on this summary. That was all that was in my record. I even looked at the chart and there is nothing more in there. I am assuming that my surgical records are in the hospital files and I am going to see if my midwife can order those directly. I don't care if the hospital knows I switched care providers at this point, but I don't want to let my OB know until my insurance changes and the switch can be official. The record the OB gave me did indicate that I had an LTCS, which I assume means low transverse cesarean section as opposed to a vertical incision or a low vertical incision. A low transverse incision is the most common incision and the one with the least risk for rupture with a VBAC. The incision on the skin is not always the same as the uterine incision so it's important to actually see your surgical records for that information. I actually see the midwife tomorrow and will ask her if I need more detailed records at this point or if it can wait for July 1 when my insurance change is official.
As for my OB the appointment was fairly routine. I surprisingly lost only one and a half pounds even with being so sick. I'm down ten and a half from my pre-pregnancy weight. My blood pressure and urine were fine and we (Tommy and I. He sits so nicely on the little chair through my appointments now!) got to hear the heartbeat with the Doppler. That was pretty much it. I say that I'm in the boring part of the pregnancy now! I have been finally feeling very regular movement. This baby is very dainty compared to Tommy. Instead of the jolting kicks and little rhythmic bladder bumps caused by hiccups I get more wavy feelings. I guess the best way to describe these kicks is to say that when this baby kicks I feel like I'm in an elevator just before it stops at the floor. You know how your stomach just hangs for a moment and you feel a bit nauseous? It's that feeling, but in my lower abdomen and bladder. I hate to say it but it's actually annoying sometimes! But the regularity of the kicks is reassuring at the same time.
I actually held out on writing my journal for this week a few extra days so I could relay the results of my twenty-week ultrasound. Officially I am nineteen weeks six days today and I usually write my journal around the fourth day of the week, but I had more to say after today's ultrasound! I don't have a large baby this time around, at least not at this point. Using all markers the baby measured exactly nineteen weeks and six days! You can't get more perfect than that. Tommy was ten pounds at birth and was quite a bit large already at this point. While I'm not really worried about my body's ability to birth a large baby vaginally, I'm not going to argue if this baby wants to be closer to a normal size!
The ultrasound technicians never really say too much, but this one did point out things as she identified them. To start the exam she found my placenta which was right on the top of my uterus, "In as perfect of a position as it could be" she said. Then she looked at my cervix and then allowed me to empty my bladder. I think that was the best part of the entire ultrasound! It's such torture to drink all that water and then not be allowed to relieve yourself for a full hour! Then she had me look away while she searched in the lower abdomen. We don't want to know the baby's gender and I didn't want to accidentally see anything! She mentioned that she saw the bladder and kidneys and was having difficulty getting a good view of the sacrum so she finally decided to go back to that. Then she had me look and we saw the abdomen and little beating heart, the spine and neck and lots of brain and head pictures. She didn't get quiet or seem alarmed at any point so I got the feeling that everything was fine. She spent some time trying to get a nice face shot for me, but just like his or her brother two years earlier this little on did not cooperate! She said the baby was wedged into a corner (I didn't know my uterus had corners, but I knew what she meant) and the head was tucked forward quite a bit. My shy little one! We saw a short glimpse of the cutest little face, but the baby moved immediately so she couldn't get a face shot. The facial shot she ended up doing looks more like a skull than a face. The idea of a just a skeleton inside of me freaks me out a little bit. I don't really like seeing that, but that is one of the drawbacks of ultrasound I guess. It can go right past the skin and see deeper! She also got a few nice views of the baby's little hands. She or he had them in little fists held together at chest level. The feet were kicking a little bit as well and we got one nice foot shot. Then she went back and tried to get a good view of the cord and the cord attachment. Again the baby didn't cooperate, but eventually she got it. And finally she went back low for the sacrum and got a pretty crummy shot, but it would have to do. I got all ready to go while she checked the films. She came back in and broke the news that all the films looked just fine, but that the doctor (I assume she means the radiologist that writes up the report for my OB) wanted to see some shots that were better representations of the amount of amniotic fluid so she want back and snapped a few more stills that weren't zoomed in as far.
The baby is both posterior (facing my belly) and breech at this time. It's not really a worry this early, but I know I would have felt a lot better if the baby was head down and anterior! I figure it's just a little half somersault to get into the ideal position so I'm confident this little one will do that in the next twenty weeks! Just in case it reminded me to ask my midwife if she will deliver a breech baby if an external version doesn't work.
Overall it was a good ultrasound. By the way the technician does know the baby's gender, but I still don't. Tom didn't see the baby either. He was in the waiting room with Tommy and they don't allow any children in the exam rooms. It really wasn't a big deal to him because he just doesn't really care to see the ultrasound or hear the heartbeat or any of that stuff. I'm fine with that and find it's better not to force him to do things he doesn't want. Along those lines I have also decided not to sign up for Bradley classes like I was thinking of doing. I am going to borrow the book, Husband-Coached Childbirth: The Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth, from my doula and he has agreed to read it along with me, not literally, but to read it at basically the same time so I can discuss things with him as I need to. It will be a lot easier on us this way actually. First our pocketbook won't be hurt as much. Secondly Tom won't have to try to arrange to make long classes each week for about eight weeks. That might interfere with his work. And lastly we won't have to find care for Tommy during that period either. I have one friend who is willing to watch him and it is pretty much the only person I think he would be comfortable with, but she recently moved several towns away. Without traffic she is at least thirty-five to forty minutes away and with traffic that could easily turn into several hours! I wouldn't want her to come to me either because that would be a long haul with her two kids and very late at night when she finally got home. If we absolutely needed her to she would though, but I don't think it is necessary.
I most likely will be using a variety of different techniques anyway and I think I can work out what will be best for me through reading and working some with my doula. I am also borrowing Pam England's book Birthing from Within: An Extra-Ordinary Guide to Childbirth Preparation, to see what I can get out of that. I have heard good and bad things about this book. There is a section on using art therapy to heal past birth wounds and to make you think with the left side of your brain or something along those lines. I'm not sure if I buy into those ideas, but I have heard from several people including my doula, that if you need to just skip that part, there are still a lot of good things to get from reading this book. I might allow Tom to skip it entirely though. He's still cracking jokes about seeing a woman dancing naked around a fireplace stirring in eye of newt to a big cauldron every time I mention my midwife! He's not against the idea of a midwife, but he's stuck in the traditional mindset of childbirth where you go to a doctor and trust everything he says without questioning. Tom is really interesting in that way because he completely agrees with me that the midwife is the right choice for my situation, and he also believes fully that God created women to naturally birth children and that it should not be a major medical and certainly not a surgical event, but it's hard to change your thinking from the stereotypes you grew up with!
Whenever I try to discuss my emotions about Tommy's birth he is just no help at all to me. He tries to be sympathetic, but he just doesn't understand! He can more easily identify with my fears of the effect of multiple cesareans on my body since we want as many children as God gives us, and I'm pretty sure that number will be greater than two, three or even four. But the raw emotions are just lost on him so I try to remember not to talk to him about that. It usually upsets me more. He's finally getting to the point where he just holds me and lets me cry if I need to, and fortunately that doesn't happen that often, but I know that causes him stress as well because he wants to fix things and he just can't. At least he is being very honest with me and does not discount my feelings, but I find much more comfort talking with other mothers who have similar feelings about their disappointing birth experiences.
I don't think I have too many unresolved feelings about Tommy's birth. I do have a bit of anger both at the doctor and myself for not sticking up for myself, but I think I've dealt with the latter. I know I was really out of it and I don't really blame myself for that, but there are times when it just makes me sad. I look at Tommy sometimes and I don't really feel like I gave birth to him. I was pregnant, then I labored and then suddenly I was alone. Several hours later a baby was put into my arms, but I was very out of it and so was the baby. He wasn't interested in me or in nursing and I had very few of those motherly emotions. I was in so much pain and so drugged up that I couldn't feel what I was feeling! Don't get me wrong I dearly love Tommy, but I often don't feel like I am his mother. It's so hard to put what I mean into words. I remember talking to my mother about this a few months after he was born. I said that I didn't feel any closer to Tommy than I did to any baby I held before. I knew in my mind I was his mother, but I could have been handed any baby to take care of and I would feel just the same. My mother seemed to understand and told me that I definitely acted like a mother infatuated with her child, and that perhaps it was just because I was so nurturing by heart that maybe it wouldn't matter to me if it was just a random baby handed to me to take care of. She believes I would be a good mother to that child as well. Maybe I am wrong to think that a better birth experience would have made a difference. Maybe not all mothers feel that intense instantaneous bond with their children that so many describe. It's hard for me to know the what ifs. I can only go on what I actually experienced myself and continue to wonder.
Another thing I have been wondering about lately is if my attitude that I WILL have a VBAC is setting me up for another disappointing birth should I end up with another cesarean. Knowing my personality I know that I can't go into this birth thinking anything different. I need this staunch determination! I think ultimately it was my confident attitude and commitment to making it work that helped me persevere through all the breastfeeding issues I had in the beginning with Tommy. Had I allowed myself to give up I might have. I feel that if I go into this birth with an attitude that it's ok if I end up with another c-section then when things get tough I will be more willing to give in to one or even ask for one! I remember how weak I was during my last labor. Logically I know that Tommy's posterior position along all the interventions (starting with the pitocin induction) made that labor much harder than it probably would have been if I had gone into labor naturally, but I still feel like I need to be prepared to face the same hard labor again. If it's easier it will be a pleasant surprise, but if I go in assuming it will be easier than I am likely to get discouraged if I find things difficult again.
While I emotionally have a lot of mixed feelings I really truly and honestly intellectually feel that a cesarean birth can be a good birth experience. For this reason I do want to write up a cesarean birth plan as well as my ideal birth plan in the case that I end of needing another c-section. I think being prepared ahead of time for that and having my wishes out there on paper for my midwife, with a doula, husband and mother who have also read those wishes and can remind me of what I want when the time comes, will make me feel much less helpless if I end up being cut open again! I plan on including technical things as well as other preferences. I would like both my doula and mother in the operating room with me if they will allow that. Tom will wait on the outskirts of the room or outside as he did with Tommy's birth. He doesn't handle blood and surgery well so I think it's best he just be a little removed from that part. This time I don't want my perfectly healthy baby whisked by me and taken away for several hours. I would like to hold him or her, with assistance of course, and even try to nurse the baby right there on the table! I would like zero or minimal separation from the start. Of course if the baby or I are in trauma I will be flexible, but I've done my research and I can see no reason for the kind of experience I had at Tommy's birth! I was just too out of it to stand up for my rights as a parent at that moment. Along those lines if I have a true emergency and need to go under general anesthesia I want to be assured that someone is with me through that and that my husband is with the baby at all times until I am awake. I think I mentioned before that that is the only good feeling I had from Tommy's birth. Tom went with Tommy to the nursery and was with him the entire time that he was separated from me. In some ways it might have been better because Tom was very scared to be a father and to hold his baby, but with me in the condition I was he saw this little helpless baby and knew that he was all there was in the world at that moment for him and I think they had a wonderful father/son time. I do envy him a little being that he held Tommy before I did, but it was very sweet that he was the one to finally hand me my beautiful little boy!
Well it has happened again. I started writing and ended up going off on many tangents and staying up to all hours of the night. It's past three now and I do need sleep. I have a La Leche League meeting at 10:30 tomorrow and then after that I plan on swinging by a house that is for rent to check out the outside so I can then call to schedule a time to see the inside. We have to move by May 31, and we've started the hunt! Then at 2:00 I have an appointment with my midwife. I will write about that in a few days. It will be a busy day and I do need my sleep!
