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Eric’s Home Birth, through His Brother’s Eyes

January 27th, 2012

Upon returning home from kindergarten earlier this week, Miles (6) carefully presented me with a small stack of papers.

“Look at the story I wrote at school today, Mommy!”

Turns out that my six-year-old is far more efficient at completing Eric’s birth story than his mother is.

Maybe all I need is a box of crayons and a BOATLOAD OF CUTENESS.

First I went up for bed.

I was just about to go to sleep.

My mom was crying.  Waaaaaaaaa.

Then my mom had the baby.

My aunt was reading to my brother Alec.

The end.

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Babies and Bliss

January 26th, 2012
This first guest post comes from someone in my “real-life life”: Becky Buffum, a local NICU nurse, fellow ICAN supporter, and comedienne extraordinaire.  (Okay, she might not do stand up–YET–but she totally could and should.  I have dreams of her some day doing a birth/parenting podcast that would have us all rolling/spitting out our coffee/splitting our sides with laughter.)

 

I’ve chosen to publish her post first because it is something I read mere hours before my first contractions began.  Usually, Becky makes me laugh so hard that I cry.  But when I read this letter for the first time, I cried because I was so moved by what she shared with me.

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The poetess behind “Birthing Beautiful Ideas” is a few days shy of her due date.  I  met her at ICAN and thought it was awesome that she was studying for her PhD.  I immediately thought Kristen was even more awesome because she laughed at all of my jokes which may or may not have been appropriate during some somber moments during ICAN meetings.  So, I have several feelings about your impending delivery.  Excitement about a 3rd baby boy, hope that your HBAC goes smoothly and the last feeling and gist of this story is a little bit of jealousy.

 

Background- I am 31 years old, married, work as a NICU RN (formerly L&D) and have two children: B (2.5 years old) and A (5 months).  B was a c-section (failure to progress at 9cm and asynclitic) under general anesthesia for a faulty epidural.  A was a hospital VBAC who was 11 lbs 3.5 oz who was birthed sans epidural.

 

Here’s why Im jealous…  Babies come out, one way or another, eventually.  If you are anything like me, a ball of nerves wondering if my VBAC was going to happen, I can’t say I enjoyed the end of my 2nd pregnancy (all 41 weeks of it).  But, the day I started contracting, I had just hours earlier come to peace with my pregnancy and eventual delivery and said to myself, “I’m letting go and trusting you to do your thing”  Fast forward a day and a half, after laboring all night with my husband, mother and two doulas by my side, my son was born and immediately placed on my chest.  NICU (one of my coworkers thank you very much) was in attendance for my forceps delivery.  Luckily, she wasn’t needed as he pinked up immediately.  Laying eyes on my creation was a feeling I could never put into words.  I was walking around immediately after my doctor finished my extensive repair.  The feeling of euphoria was so great that it dulled the feeling of my broken tailbone.  One of the many benefits of childbirth is how your husband looks at you for a few days afterwards like you are She-ra, princess of power!!!  I cherish that time in the hospital where you dont have to clean anything, you are completely cared for, fed in bed and your little family gets to know each other.

 

Then you go home.  Week two of the postpartum period was a little dicey.  My husband was back to work and not focused on the little cocoon we had made.  My broken tailbone made it impossible to bend anywhere, get up out of a seated position, get baby in and out of a bouncy chair or hold my toddler.  I was scared when I (warning TMI) took my underwear off that my butt was going to fall out.  It didn’t hurt but never in my professional experience had I seen a 4th degree tear with an episiotomy.  Of course, I hadn’t seen any 11 pound babies born either.  The guilt of becoming the parent of more than one child also set in: “Am I paying equal attention, yadda yadda yadda.”  Of course I was, because I felt so guilty about it that I was spending more one on one time with my toddler than before the baby came.  You know, all of that quality time when I had my feet in his baby pool reading a People magazine while he played with his boats?

 

Fast forward again, my tailbone heals, I adjust to two kids, the d&c is over after a dime size shred of placenta had to be removed during week seven.  I am still jealous.  I don’t know that we’ll have any more children.  I’m not sure that I could do three boys :)   BUT, I can tell you that at month five of the postpartum period,  I am in a state of bliss.  I love my baby so much that my chest feels like it might explode.  When I hold the two boys in my lap, I can honestly say my heart is full.  When I think about my son’s birth, which I do REGULARLY, I would love to do it all again.  Particularly those first few days.  I remember it hurt, but I remember the wonder and joy more.  I love when my squirmy baby is still on my chest and I close my eyes and try to breathe him in.  There are so many feelings after having a baby and between both boys, I’m quite sure I have felt them all.

 

So, please let me say to you Kristen, I am so excited and jealous that you get to experience birth and meet your newest love in the very near future.  I can’t wait to hear your story :)

 

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Eric’s Birth: The Short Story

January 20th, 2012

Our baby boy has arrived!

In case you haven’t yet heard the news on Facebook or Twitter, our little boy–Eric Joseph–arrived early Thursday morning at 4:45 a.m.  He weighed 8 lbs. 14 oz. and is absolutely adorable.  We are madly in love!

I’ll write the full story of Eric’s birth (including a story about the significance of his name) in the coming days.  But for those of you who are anxious for a few details now (now! now!), here are ten “birth story vignettes” to give you a partial picture of his birth.

 

Does it surprise anyone that my last meal before giving birth was (get ready for it) a Chipotle burrito?  Seriously, I think Chipotle, Eric, and I should strike up some sort of sponsorship deal.  (Would I ever go so far as to swaddle my baby in tin foil?  FOR FREE BURRITOS, I MIGHT!)  (I kid, I kid.  Sorta.)

My first few contractions were only 10-11 minutes apart, but I knew that they might be something when they inspired me to make up my own curse words to cope with them.  (You guys, I used the “c-word.”  While in early labor.  WITHIN EARSHOT OF A PRECIOUS BABY WHO WAS ABOUT TO BE BORN.)

After an hour-and-a-half of contractions, I stood up to call my birth team to let them know what was going on.  As soon as I was upright, the contractions started coming 4-5 minutes apart.  I knew then that I made the right decision to fire off some phone calls.

I loved my birth playlist.  I kept it on throughout my entire labor, which meant that I toted around my iPhone as if it were my preeccccious.  (Steve Jobs would have been pleased, methinks!)  The only time I didn’t like the music was during pushing when the Crash Kings’ song, “You Got Me,” started playing.  It wasn’t that I didn’t like the song.  It’s just that the reverb/fuzzy sound at the beginning of the track really annoyed me, so I barked orders at Tim to skip it IMMEDIATELY.  He happily complied.

I spent the first couple hours of labor in my kitchen with Tim, my doula, and one of my midwives.  I squatted and swayed and rocked throughout contractions, holding a heated rice sock against my back (I felt best doing it myself) and moaning deeply and breathing slowly.  I didn’t enjoy the contractions, but I’ll admit–they never once felt unmanageable, and never nearly as intense as my labor with Alec.

I was the merry-freaking-prankster right up until the last couple hours or so.  I insisted on getting a really goofy picture with one of my midwives next to a pot of water we were boiling.  (It was to warm up the birth pool…but COME ON!  BOILING WATER AT A BIRTH!  CLASSIC!  And this was a mere three hours before I was holding my baby, mind you.)  I also had a good laugh about what I called my birth mullet: I wanted a cold washcloth on my neck and a hot pack on my back.  For some reason, this reminded me of the “party in the back, business in the front” saying about mullets.  Just…don’t ask.  (Oh, and this was two hours and forty-five minutes before Eric was born.)  And then two hours before he was born, I was literally goofing around in the tub, singing “I swim like a little fishy in the sea!”  In between contractions, of course.

And then everyone–my mom, my sisters, a friend taking pictures, and my other two midwives–arrived at the house.  Once the last people walked through the door, I finally got serious.  I turned inward.  And soon–really, quite soon–I was giving little pushes at the end of my contractions.

I finally got to be “that woman” who enjoyed pushing!  It felt like a relief!  It didn’t really hurt!  At all!  (Don’t hate me.)  You guys?  I could barely even feel the ring of fire.  (Seriously, don’t hate me.)  And I got the six hour labor that I literally would have ordered off a labor menu if I could have!  (*Ducking to avoid being hit by rotten tomatoes*)

I did push for one hour and fifteen minutes.  I needed a lot of help, too.  In fact, I welcomed some coaching from one of my midwives (not counting or anything–just position change suggestions, direct encouragement about which pushes were “effective,” and so on).  And that’s because Eric was probably posterior for much for the second stage of labor.  TOUGH STUFF, PEOPLE.  But then after I flipped to my hands and knees (for probably the second or third time), he rotated a bit and…

…he was born:  Into the loving hands of skilled midwives who, because of a very tight nuchal cord (i.e. the umbilical cord was around his neck), helped him somersault out of me safely.  Into a living room filled with the warmth and friendship and support of some of the most amazing people I know.  Into a family who is so in love with him that our hearts feel as if they are about to burst.  And to the tune of Kenny Rogers’s “The Gambler.”  Which is pretty silly, but also, in its own strangely beautiful way, fitting: for this year, this pregnancy, even this labor has been a lesson in looking at the cards I’ve been dealt and figuring out how to play them with grace and wisdom.

 

Here he is: our graceful, wise little baby Eric

I cannot thank you all enough for the love and support you have shared all throughout this journey our family has made.  Yes, I thought of you all during my labor.  I felt the love you sent my way.  Every woman and every baby should be so lucky, and I feel absolutely spoiled by you all.  From the bottom of my heart–from the bottoms of my family’s hearts–thank you, thank you.

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Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies: A Book Review and Author Interview

January 16th, 2012

When Jena Pincott, author of Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?, contacted me to see if I’d be interested in reviewing her book, I’ll admit that the title alone had me intrigued.  I am, after all, a dyed-in-the-cacao chocolate lover.  Could my near-daily chocolate consumption lead to that sweet, docile baby I’ve always dreamed of?  (More on that in a bit…)

But then I spied the book’s subtitle: “The Surprising Science of Pregnancy.”  Then, I became really interested in reading her book.

And, as it turns out, I’m really glad that I did.

In a nutshell, Do Chocolate Lovers… is a collection of short pieces offering research-based answers to some of the most quirky and unusual questions about pregnancy.

Questions like, “Do bossy broads have more sons?”  (Turns out that women with higher testosterone levels often do!)  “Do mommies have better brains?”  (In the first few postpartum months, we do often grow new grey matter in areas of the brain related to planning and execution, motivation and reward, perception and sensory integration, and maternal hormones!)  And, of course, “Do chocolate lovers have sweeter babies?”  (Daily chocolate consumers do indeed tend to have babies who appear to be less stressed, less fearful, and less frustrated!  YOU’RE WELCOME, MY SWEET BABY!)

But more than simply answering these questions, Pincott describes the research behind those answers in a way that’s both accessible and fun(ny).  What’s more, she explains the science of pregnancy carefully and even gently.  For as she reiterates, cause is not the same as correlation, and tendency does not imply destiny.  In other words, for the most part, we’re not “ruining” our babies if we miss out on one or more of the things that the research tells us we should be doing.

And more than that, pregnancy (and parenting, for that matter) isn’t and shouldn’t be about “doing it perfectly”–it’s about doing what we can, with the information and abilities we have in the moment.

For instance: even though, as Pincott discusses, fish-based Omega-3 fatty acid consumption during pregnancy is linked to a whole host of brain and intelligence benefits in babies and older children, my “failure” eat “enough” fish during this pregnancy doesn’t entail that I’ll have an intellectually deficient child.  These fatty acids are just one piece of the puzzle.  And there’s plenty else that I can do to help make the most of the brain with which this little baby is born.  (You can see more about Pincott’s fascinating research on omega-3′s in my interview with her below.)

So, dear readers, do I recommend this book to you?  Absolutely.  Pregnant women, parents, science-lovers, and collectors-of-strange-knowledge galore should enjoy it immensely.

Don’t mistake it for a comprehensive pregnancy and birth guide, because that’s not what it is.  But it is 100% fascinating, smart, and fun.

 

Now onto my interview with Jena Pincott.  Many thanks to her for sharing the book with me and taking the time to answer these questions!


1. What research surprised you the most when preparing for and writing this book?  On a similar note, what part of your experience of pregnancy and/or childbirth surprised you the most as it related to preparing for and writing this book?

 

A lot of fascinating research on how pregnancy affects brain and behavior came out when I was writing the book. In a nutshell, many of us become chummier, calmer, more sensorial and even sentimental. Memory may suffer, attention drifts.

I was surprised by how much pregnancy affected my brain— and, by extension, the writing process. I’ve always relied on flow — that hypnotic, hyper-efficient state in which I delve into a pile of studies and notes, write, and emerge an hour or five later with something substantial.  I had a completely different type of flow this time —completely unlike my usual neurotic deadline-driven process.  In first trimester, I found myself wading neck-deep for weeks in the minutiae of a fairly rare medical condition (a subchorionic hematoma that resolved itself) that wouldn’t warrant more than a mention in the book. In third trimester I’d daydream a lot, listening to music and allowing thoughts to flow —whether the baby would kick in the allegro movement as she did the previous day, what music I should bring to the delivery room, and so on. So much of what I wrote ended up on the cutting room floor; readers want to read about the interesting big-picture stuff, not about every kick and bowel movement.

I wondered about my behavior:  the calmness about deadlines, the weird malapropisms and tip-of-the-tongue word retrieval frustrations, the hyper-vigilance about medical stuff, the haze toward the end of third-trimester.  Was I acting this way only because the studies indicate that pregnant women should? It’s hard to be your own guinea pig.

 

2. As a philosopher, I’ve often been intrigued by the epistemic value of folk knowledge or folk wisdom: things like old wives’ tales, allegories, metaphorical “truths,” stories that our ancestors used to explain the human experience, and so on.  Of course, many such “old wives’ tales” pertaining to pregnancy and birth have been debunked!  Nonetheless, were there ever moments in your research for the book where you thought to yourself, “Hmm…science may support [insert piece of folk knowledge or wisdom] after all!”?

 I was really gratified to find evidence that science supports a mother’s intuition.  Expectant moms who have a strong feeling about the gender of their child — or have a dream in which their child’s gender is revealed — are accurate significantly more often than by chance.  I love this.  Of course I swore that I was going to have a boy—and I was wrong.

Incidentally, a lot of strangers on the street told me I was carrying a boy because my bump was high and as round as a basketball.  That particular folk wisdom — the predictive power of belly shape— doesn’t pan out in scientific studies. But a lot of people also base their predictions on a woman’s overall shape, and it turns out that one’s curves above the belt are somewhat revealing.  A new study found that women who are carrying girls grow larger breasts than women who are expecting boys.  By second trimester, I had definitely grown a cup size.

 

3. One of the things that I especially loved about Do Chocolate Lovers… is that you weave your personal experience of being a pregnant woman into your science writing about pregnancy–and you do so without sacrificing the clarity and strength of your exposition of the research!  This is a remarkable feat.  Were there ever moments, however, when the research itself affected the way you experienced your pregnancy?  Did it propel you, for instance, to alter any of your behaviors or habits?  To pat yourself on the back for “doing the right thing?”  Did it ever make you feel neurotic about all that you “should” be doing in order to ensure the health not only of your baby but of future generations (i.e. your “baby’s babies”)?

 Thank you for asking this because it gives me an opportunity to make a point! I write about epigenetics— the ways in which the behavior of genes (yours and the fetus’s and possibly future generations too) is affected by the environment, which includes diet, disease, stress, smoking, sunshine, and many other factors.  This knowledge was pleasingly motivating when it came to remembering to take care of myself during pregnancy. (Don’t starve but don’t overindulge either, embrace stress but eschew excess stress, exercise but don’t overextend, and so on.)

The catch is that it’s easy to get neurotic and start worrying that anything that violates the rules — that extra chocolate bar, the fight with your partner, a pizza sauce made out of canned tomatoes — is going to permanently hurt your baby and future generations too. (At one point I panicked about being stressed.)

But here’s the truth: the system is resilient.  It rebounds after normal, moderate adversity. I made sure to include examples of this in the book — for instance, how a healthy diet high in leafy greens and other nutrients may reverse or offset the adverse epigenetic effects of prenatal BPA exposure and a recent study that found that kids who have strong, healthy relationships with their mothers, even if those mothers were highly stressed during pregnancy, don’t show the usual adverse cognitive and behavioral effects of excess prenatal stress.

Whenever I found myself getting neurotic about some misdeed, I’d remind myself about balance and resilience.

 

4.  In a similar vein, one of the moments that I most adored in the book is the way you address missing out on some of the “golden hour” after your daughter’s birth.  (For those who don’t know, this “golden hour” is the hour immediately following birth when, ideally [and as research demonstrates], babies should spend their time skin-to-skin with their mothers: taking in their mother’s scent, helping to stimulate her milk production, and setting off a number of other beneficial hormonal and bio-chemical responses in one another.)  It seems as if your hospital’s policies at the time resulted in an initial and prolonged separation between you and your baby after her birth.  You response to this is mixed with both regret and hope.  For you wish that you could have changed that hour.  But you also write:

 …Now when my baby is fussy, I unsnap and pull up her onesie, lay her on my naked chest, skin to skin, and feel her anxiety dissolve.

Our first golden hour together has passed, and I can’t change that.  Fortunately, there will be many more.

This is so beautiful, but also so wise.  And I’ve wondered if, in sharing this part of your experience, you intended to pass on any particular wisdom to other mothers who might regret certain circumstances or choices relating to their own pregnancy or parenting?

I once worked in TV, and producers have a saying when a taping doesn’t go perfectly:  we’ll fix it in the mix. That is, we can compensate for errors in a performance — and even improve it — by making tweaks later on.  It’s hard to go through nine-plus months of pregnancy with a perfect performance.  But I really think that much can be fixed in the mix.

I will always regret not holding my baby enough in those first hours after birth. Throughout my pregnancy I was so caught up in whatever was going on in the moment that I didn’t focus on the overwhelming research on the benefits of skin-to-skin contact right after birth.  I wrote that section several weeks after the baby was born. But she did get a lot of snuggling in those first weeks anyway.  My milk came in four days after she was born and I’ve since been nursing for well over a year. I like to think I’ve compensated.

My advice to parents is to focus on what you’re doing for your child now, not what you could’ve done.  When one window of opportunity slams shut, another opens.

 

 5. You end the book with a “summary of practical tips” pertaining to pregnancy, birth, and infant-parenting.  Since you published the book, have you come across any other well-researched practical tips that you would like to add?

I’m intrigued by the ongoing research on omega-3s and pregnancy.  In the book I wrote about the benefits of prenatal fish consumption. I noted that among the studies that found positive effects of omega-3s on children’s cognition, most involved eating fish, not taking fish oil pills.  I’ve seen more evidence of this lately, including a few disturbing studies that found that the consumption of prenatal fish oil pills were linked with lower scores on some cognitive tests. I posted an article about it in the Huffington Post.

There are many explanations for this. One is that fish is more than the sum of its parts and/or that we metabolize the omega-3s better in a meal than in a pill. Another explanation is that women who take fish oil pills in a pregnancy study don’t continue to take them after the baby is born, unlike women who eat fish during pregnancy and afterward. Babies do best when there is consistency between prenatal and postnatal conditions. If a woman takes fish oil pills during pregnancy then stops taking them after the birth, there is a “environmental mismatch” between pre- and postnatal life. The fetus is “programmed” in the womb to have certain nutritional expectations and is thrown off when conditions change. When prenatal predictions turn out to be wrong (e.g. during a food shortage or a period of maternal anxiety that reverses after the birth) babies seem to fare worse than if the conditions had remained constant.

These studies are not at all conclusive and further research is warranted.  But my advice is to eat (low-mercury) fish, during and after pregnancy, rather than take fish oil supplements. If you take fish oil pills, make sure that your baby gets increased omega-3s after birth too.

 

Many thanks to Jena Pincott, author of Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?:  The Surprising Science of Pregnancy.  Follow pregnancy & parenting science on: Facebook,  Twitter  @jenapincott   or  http://jenapincott.com/.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author for purposes of the review.  I did not receive any additional compensation.

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Dear Baby: Thirty-Nine Weeks, Two Days

January 15th, 2012

Dear Baby,

A couple weeks ago, I experienced 28 consecutive hours of practice/prodromal/pre-labor: mildly crampy contractions that were 5-10 minutes apart but not getting any closer together, any longer, or any stronger.

After the first three hours, I contacted some of the people on my birth team just to give them a head’s up.  It’s not that I thought that labor was imminent, but I did want to let them know what was going on.  As a courtesy.  As an acknowledgement that sometimes these early contractions transform into productive labor.

And then nothing happened.  Which I all but expected–I was only 37 weeks pregnant, after all.

Then earlier this week, I woke up to a bunch of (get ready for it) bloody show.  (Look it up.  Or don’t.  I know you are the child of a doula, but ignorance may be bliss when it comes to thinking about your mother in regard to these matters.)  Since I knew that this meant that labor could be near (or the next day…or the next week), I sent another courtesy text to my birth team.

All morning, I felt crampy and “heavy” with the feeling of approaching labor.  I set up the sheets in the guest bedroom for your grandma and aunt.  I filled out a job application and completed a project that I had been working on for about a month.  I snuggled with Alec.  I ate crackers with peanut butter and drank a lot of water.

And then everything stopped.  The show.  The crampiness and heaviness.  It was gone.

Again, I wasn’t worried.  I was only 38 weeks pregnant, after all.

So I looked down at you, touched my hand to my belly, and said, “I know that you are wise, and that you know when to be born.  I trust you, little guy.”

And then I received a call from your grandma.

It turns out that Great-Grandpa needed surgery the following day.  He did well–remarkably well, even.  But there was worry and concern and lots of hand-wringing preceding the operation.  For while your great-grandfather has strength, he is also frail; although he is improving in some ways, he is not in others.  And thus surgery is so very risky for him, riskier than it would be for most others.

(But oh, he is good!  And I talked to him just hours after his operation!  And he’s asked about you and cannot wait to meet you!  And my sweet boy, as soon as we’re up to it, we’ll make that drive to see him!)

I trust that you in your wisdom knew that last Wednesday would not have been a good day to arrive.  I like to think that you could sense the emotional reasons to wait to be born.

I like to think that you are a wise, knowing little baby.

And that’s why I’m in no rush to get this labor going.  It could start tonight, or two weeks from tonight, and I will be equally happy whenever it occurs.

For you have enough wisdom to know when to be born.

And for this mama, there is no greater peace than simply trusting in that wisdom.

 

Love,

Mom

 

p.s. 39 week belly shot!

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