Goodbye second trimester.

January 27, 2008 at 8:46 am (birthing, medical, second trimester, third trimester)
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Hard to believe the second trimester is up already! Suddenly I’m @ 28 weeks. How the frack did that happen?

Been really busy doing what? Learning, mostly. Reading a lot and building my birth team, which took forever but am positively thrilled by this wonderful combination of women: I am working with an awesome doula and midwife and I cannot overstate the importance of feeling like I totally trust and respect this team!!

I went to the midwife last week and was mightily impressed by how much she relied on her sense of touch to give her information about me and the bean. Touched my right shoulder, “you need to loosen here” – put her hands on my belly and felt me in the most holy combination of strength and sensitivity, “The baby’s head is down now” – and “you have good strong pelvis” – *poke poke* – “These joints here *poke* already loosening – will loosen and open during labor” – gave me a reality about this whole thing that was profoundly comforting.

“You will bring your husband next time” she says. Yes, its time to get him more into the nitty gritty of this stuff. I have enjoyed the more solo sojourns into a lot of aspects of this journey, so I can know my own strengths and limits, deepen my own wisdom and come up against my own shit. But she’s right – it’s time to involve C a lot more in this stuff.

Before I deliver, aside from all the obvious things like “take childbirthing classes” “work with C on final house decisions” and “quit work”, I want to:

1) Exercise at least 30 min each day. (buaha!)

2) Practice hypnobirthing – though the reviews of this have been mixed – I am really drawn to the practice of going into deep trance and have done it before – so I do think this will be a useful tool during labor.

3) Finish this languishing episode of this fictional serial I’ve been working on.

4) Finish reading Birthing From Within and do some of these amazing exercises.

5) Go on a sweet trip with C for a weekend.

6) Create a “Welcome to earth, little bean!” ceremony.

7) Sort out the last name issue with C.

8) DJ a kick ass set someplace!

Goodbye second trimester. Thanks for everything. Hello third! I’m all yours.

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Tips for Survinging Second Trimester

December 16, 2007 at 6:09 pm (lessons, second trimester)
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Okay, so I’m not done with it, but I am getting enough of a sense of the 2nd trimester that I’m compelled to start listing out all the stuff I’ve learned.

1) Take your life back from anyone who might have big chunks of it. You will probably not feel this good again with this much time on your hands for a long while. Enjoy yourself! Align the creative energy going on in your body with your own creative spirit.

1a) There will be fears associated with the above. They’re okay and smart and normal and don’t feel dumb about having them. Just keep engaged with your creative spirit and stay true to that.

2) Now is a great time to do research with some of that copious energy. The testing stuff is, for now, behind you. Now it’s time to learn about homebirth vs birth center vs hospital birth. Also time to research and get recos on doulas and/or midwifes and/or OB and sort out how you’re going to bring this little creature onto the planet. Talk to everyone, interview them, imagine spending the hardest day of your life with them: whaddya think?

3) Your sex drive will be crazy. Again, carpe diem, as this is about to change. Good time to exercise too.

4) Surprise! Somewhere in here, you are going to start to get really big. And about this time, you may start feeling heart burn because your baby is squishing your stomach out of the way and your esophogus can’t constrict the way it’s used to. This is a big pain in the but and requires a dietary overhaul. Decaf coffee and tea, and all spicy foods, anything heavy in fat – buhbye. One more nail in the coffin of tasty things you can actually eat.

5) People will start to ask you different questions. “Do you know the gender?” and “Have you picked any names?” Even if you have a name that you LOVE, don’t tell them about it, as you really DON’T want to hear about someone’s great aunt who was going to be named that, but then her second cousin of the same name was killed in a boating accident or something.

6) Sleep a lot. Is this just me? I’m still sleeping a lot.

7) There is a whole recycling network of baby gear. Do not buy anything new. I am forever indebted to friends Minnie and Vim for the hookup on all kinds of strollers and carrying doo-dads and onsies and just about anything else you could need to take care of a newborn excrement machine.

8 ) Other pregnant moms will start coming out of the woodwork. This might be the best part of all — connecting with others who are going through this too. (Hi, K, J and, most recently, S!) These are some of the greatest conversations ever!  I’m considering starting a mom’s group & mailing list – so any of us who want can can all stay connected and share info/resources.
9) People will start giving up their seats on public transit for you. You really are showing, yo.

10) Talk to your baby. Start bonding with him or her. Ask questions. Tell it what you hope for it. (Or “pray” if you’re so inclined)  When I tell the bean what I hope for her, she starts to roll around and I can feel it. At one point the other day, I started being a little more heavy handed – telling her what I wanted her to be – and she really gave me a good kick. Point taken, bean-o!

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Oh right, the BIRTH!

October 28, 2007 at 6:13 pm (birthing)
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One of the hallmarks of second trimester is all the testing you have to go through. That, and the fact that you’re not feeling so terrible anymore, so you can actually get out and see people like a human being again!

So I’m out last night with some friends when it hit me: I haven’t really begun thinking about the actual birth. Well okay, I have thought about the fact that I want the birth in an actual hospital since I’m older and a little more high risk.

Other than that, a lot is up in the air.

I’d love my OB to deliver the baby but a) she’s crazy busy, and b) everyone here in woowoo bay area says OBs are evil and will force me to have a C-section and that I should really look into more natural childbirth – whatever that means. So I am starting the process of this, sorting out the difference between a midwife and a doula; what the different “stages” of labor are and how the fark an entire baby actually comes out of this little tiny space.

Most mothers I’ve talked to about the actual birth part start by saying how INSANELY painful it is, how any number of gross things end up happening, followed by a list of things they wished they’d done differently. I must have a contorted expression on my face at this point, as they always follow quickly with an apologetic, “I hope I’m not scaring you. It really is amazing.”

My revulsion is enhanced by my astonishingly low tolerance for gross physical stuff. Blood, open wounds, entrails – any of it. And needles. I cannot stand needles. I pass out when they draw blood for a routine blood test. Or get this: When I was 15, I actually fainted when I got my ears pierced, right there on the shopping mall floor!

So when I start placing myself squarely in the middle of this picture – contractions that wrench your gut into a pretzel for 30something straight hours, weird fluids coming out of me, to epidural or not to epidural – I start to shut down. Go into denial. Think about something else.

Obviously this is not a sustainable approach.

Someone recommended something called “hypnobirthing” to me. Someone else said “it doesn’t really help.” So my quest continues. Any suggestions, oh you wise folks who have gone before?

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Big tests tomorrow

October 10, 2007 at 6:21 pm (second trimester)
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Tomorrow I go in for “genetic counseling,” a blood test, and my second ultrasound. They can determine likelihood of Down’s syndrome, and other genetic diseases between this and another blood test.

I have kept myself blissfully ignorant of all the potential terrifying genetic mashups that could befall my baby, and instead have kept myself positive and focused on healthy outcome. Tomorrow will be a bit of a day of reckoning.

I have two things going against me:
1) I am 43
2) I have a first cousin who is has a mental disability

I assume I will get the full ear-load of stats and probabilities in the “genetic counselling” section of tomorrow’s appointment. They have to tell us about this sometime, right?

Meanwhile, I secretly pray for a healthy bean with all my heart.

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Craving du Jour: Indian food

October 9, 2007 at 9:14 pm (second trimester)
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Breakfast: Leftover sag paneer, and nan.

Lunch: Vegetables masala, rice and nan.

Dinner: Dal, yogurt, more rice and more nan.

Cannot get enough of that sublime coriander, cumin, tumeric, fenugreek curry ecstasy yumminess. I think this kid was Bengali in a past life.

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