bearing blog

Blogging will be light over the next few weeks, I’m thinking.

It’s so hard to know what the most important details are to post, with a two-day-old baby. 

Birth junkies will want to know that the labor was fairly short, not terribly hard — the tough part, only about two hours long — though it culminated in about 60 somewhat scary seconds of shoulder dystocia.  Particularly since this is the second time I’ve had that problem.  But all’s well that ends well.  We had two midwives and two female friends come over — the friends helped our kids and so Mark could be with me the whole time.  The boys missed the actual birth, and I’m kind of glad because it was a bit frightening.  They came up after Mary Jane started to cry. 

LLL types will want to know that nursing is going ehhhhh, so-so.  After two boys I thought I knew what I was doing.  MJ has a bit of a latch problem:  a receding jaw and a tongue thrust.  She does ok when she latches on, but it takes a good 5-15 min to get her latched.  We’re working on it.  I had a former League leader, a friend’s mom, over at my house today for a couple of hours to remind me of all the things I’ve forgotten because my second child was such an easy nurser.  After 6 years of continuous nursing I am back to Square 1, that being the Square Where You Need Half A Dozen Pillows Within Reach At All Times.

If family dynamics are your thing, well… can you come watch my boys for a couple of days?  No, it’s not that bad, yet, but I’ve been intermittently VERY overwhelmed!  They love their new sister, but the energy around here is very charged!  Jumping and screaming and yelling and fighting and all that.  I suppose they will settle down eventually.  We are trying to keep Oscar’s routine close to normal — that seems to be helping some. 

Me, I’m doing ok.  The afterpains are something fierce!  Worse than labor, a few of them.  But I think recovery will be fairly swift.  Home birth rocks.  Give me a couple of days.

Amazing.

I spent eighteen hours Friday thinking I was in early labor.  Contractions seven to nine minutes apart, all day.  Then I went to bed.

Saturday afternoon it started up again, fairly heavily.  This time, three to four minutes apart.   Occasionally I’d "skip one."  That lasted about six hours.  Then I went to bed.

Nothing today except a couple of Braxton-Hicks-type contractions.  I feel almost normal.   At Mass I was able to stand and to kneel; for the past four weeks I’ve spent the whole time sitting.  I emptied the dishwasher and cleaned up the kitchen, twice.  I’m thirstier and more tired than usual, but otherwise it’s business as usual.  And it feels so empty and boring!  I thought I’d have a baby in my arms by now.

This is so… anticlimactic.  I feel like I can’t make any plans or drive anywhere, lest it start up again heavier than before and I’ll be stranded.  Normally on Mondays I take the kids to music class, then to Melissa’s to spend the day.  Do I dare?  I just don’t know.  When I birthed Milo, I went from "oh, this’ll probably be a few more hours before it ramps up" to TRANSITION! in the space of about fifteen minutes and in a puddle of amniotic fluid.  I’m kind of reluctant to go anywhere that’ll make it difficult to get home quickly.

No, this isn’t a birth story (yet).  Hang in there.

I had steady, moderately intense contractions all day yesterday, from when I got up in the morning until I went to bed last night.  And it sure felt like early labor.  Plus I made a pot of soup and cleaned the entire house (no scrubbing, just tidying and sweeping, except for a couple of toilets).  At lunchtime I made Mark come home, I was so sure we were starting to ramp up into active labor.  By late evening we were waffling about whether they were getting close enough together that we  should call the midwife again.

And then I got tired and said, "You know, my dream right now is that everything will just stop so I can get a good night’s sleep, and then start up again when I wake up in the morning."

And I waddled up to bed and went to sleep.  As I dozed off I was still intermittently aware of painful contractions, but I was too tired to count them or anything.  I woke up around midnight and went downstairs for a sandwich and came back up and went back to sleep.   And then when I woke up again, it was morning.  And here I am, about six-thirty AM. 

I’ve had a couple of very light contractions since I woke up.  I don’t know if they’ll develop back into what I was doing yesterday, but still — Wow.  Did I make that happen? 

I guess, now, I have to figure out what I’m going to do today if labor doesn’t start up again.   I suppose it’s back to my usual routine:  make the grocery list, set up some schoolwork (Oscar didn’t do any yesterday and the kids watched the same movie over and over again — I was in labor, after all!).  Well, that’s no fun — I was all set up for the normal rules to be suspended.

I would like to take a walk with my family in a nice park somewhere, but we’re in the middle of a heat wave and it may hit triple digits today.  Maybe we could manage a short walk.

Now entering Day 10 of The Long String Of Having Some Contractions Every Day.

Yeah, every day, for a few hours.  It’s not too bad, except that they tend to tire me out.  One thing that’s probably good about this:  ten days ago, when I had a series of contractions in a row, I was thinking, Oh nooooooo, I am not ready for this yet.  By now I’m thinking, Please please please let this be the start of labor.  Let’s go.

Third time through, and everything feels different.  When I was waiting for Milo to be born, I kept wandering around the duplex, thinking, I need to fix a rope or something to the doorjamb or the ceiling, so I have something to grab onto and hang from when I’m in labor.  I never got around to it, but interestingly enough, I did deliver Milo while "hanging" (albeit standing, supported by hanging from my arms over the shoulders of two other people).  Last night, downstairs in the kids’ playroom, I noticed the "swinging rings" dangling from the ceiling joists.  I reached out and took hold of them; I leaned back; I bent my knees and sank down until my weight stretched into my arms, wrists, hands.  I paused for a moment, experimenting.

Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  My elbows were coming apart.  I let go.

I’m a planner by nature.  I like to have a calendar on the wall with big squares to write everything down.  Weekly meal planning?  I have a stack of preprinted blanks in the kitchen drawer.  I like to know every morning what I’m doing that day.  Um.  Can’t really do that now.