new domain name

Nothing much interesting to post today but I wanted to let everyone know that I’m letting my paid-for domain name (bubbaandme.com) expire so my blog will now reside at the less-cool sounding bubbaandme.wordpress.com.

bored at home mom

In my previous post I expressed my disappointment in not being able to refer to myself as a WAHM (work at home mom), which has a much cooler ring to it than SAHM (stay at home mom).  But now I’ve realized I have an even better acronym for myself – BAHM!  Bored.  At.  Home.  Mom.

What’s inspired me to assume this new role?  Well, first – and probably most importantly – Bubba is down to one nap a day rather than the beloved two.  And it’s not one of those awesome 2-3 hour naps you hear about.  It’s one very short 30 minute nap.  Sometimes a whopping hour if I’m lucky.  So there goes my “me time.”  The rest of our day is spent filling very long stretches of time.  Back when he napped every 2-3 hours I only had a small window of wake time to fill with feedings, diaper changes, playing at home and the occasional quick outing.  Now I’ve got five hours straight of crabby toddler time on my hands and I haven’t managed to find anything to do that doesn’t feel like just killing time until bedtime.

Also, Bubba is 14 months old now and this seems to be a really dull  limbo age.  He’s old enough to get crabby when we aren’t out and about doing things, but he’s not old enough to actually “do” anything.  For example, he’s too old for the little baby story time at the library because he won’t just sit on my lap anymore, but he’s not quite old enough for the toddler time because he isn’t walking yet.  He’s old enough to scream and cry like he’s being tortured whenever I try to do anything that doesn’t allow me to give him my full attention, but when I am paying attention to him all he can really do is crawl around and point at things, saying “deeh” over and over again.  I’m sorry, but ten hours a day of naming our various household items as he points is getting a little old.

Lastly, I’ve been staying home for over a year now and I’m actually starting to miss work.  I never in a million years thought I would utter those words but it’s true.  I miss having a schedule.  I miss being accountable for something.  I really miss being around other adults more often.  And I majorly miss the paycheck.

All of this has made me start to explore the possibility of going back to work.  It’s a rather scary thought, seeing as how I’ve been out of the work force for so long now and I feel like my pregnancy brain never quite went away.  Seriously, am I the only one who feels like having a kid knocked me down a few notches on the IQ scale?  I have a college degree but nine times out of ten I can’t remember to turn off the oven after taking the food out.  And all of my friends are on the verge of dumping me because I constantly ask them the same questions over and over again.  It’s not that I don’t listen to their answers, I just quickly forget them.  So that’s the kind of material I would have to fill a cover letter about me if I were to paint a realistic picture.

I’ve been dreaming of finding a job that would allow me to work from home but I don’t know how I could actually pull that off.  I can’t even check my email for two minutes without Bubba clinging to my leg and wailing like I’m killing his soul.  I know daycare is always an option but when I researched prices it seems that after paying the monthly fee, the remainder of my paycheck would amount to what I used to make working at Little Caesars two nights a week in high school.  This saddens me because I know Bubba would really like being around other kids in a more stimulating environment.  Sometimes I think he’s just as bored as I am.

Bubba’s having his brief nap right now and I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do with him for the rest of the day.  A friend of mine suggested coming up with a schedule of activities to do with him around the house to pass the time.  So far this is what I’ve come up with:

2:00-2:15 – Chase Bubba around the living room, grabbing his feet and saying “I’m gonna getchoo!”

2:15-2:20 – Hold Bubba in front of the mirror and point at ourselves.

2:20 – 2:23 – Look at books until he starts throwing them on the floor.

2:23 – 2:35 – Chase Bubba around the room again until my knees get sore.

2:35 – 2:37 – Visit the cat in the closet and “pet” her until she starts to hiss at us.

2:37 – 6:20 bedtime – Play with toys on the floor and look at the clock about every five minutes.

I need to get a job.

bubba’s natural birth story – part two

*Warning – In an attempt to fully describe labor and delivery, this post contains some very graphic material.  Like I said in my last post, I appreciated reading detailed birth stories when I was pregnant and I want to offer mine for the same purpose.

I went into labor two days before my due date and I’d like to think that my self-induction attempts had something to do with helping the process along, but who knows?

I was in the bedroom folding laundry when Brian got home from work at 9:30 that night.  He was talking to me from the kitchen when I felt my first “real” contraction hit.  I say real because I had experienced a lot of contractions for about two weeks prior but the one I felt that night was different.  It was more venomous.  In hindsight I think it was more than coincidence that my labor started just a few minutes after Brian got home from work.

I went into the kitchen to tell Brian about it but I was trying not to get my, or his, hopes up because we’d experienced so many false starts before.  I sat at the kitchen table and waited for the next one to hit.  Sure enough the contractions started coming regularly.  I felt a lot of pressure  in the usual period cramp area combined with a fairly sharp pain.  They were consistent and strong and I didn’t have to walk up and down stairs to get them to keep coming.  In my natural birth class they told us to eat something while laboring at home since I wouldn’t be allowed to eat once I got to the hospital so I downed a bowl of cereal.  Then I went straight to bed, thinking I should try to get some sleep.

Anyone every tried to sleep while being kicked in the stomach every couple of minutes?  I lay in bed trying to relax as much as possible but every time a contraction hit I couldn’t help squeezing myself into a ball, clenching my fists and  breathing quickly.  It was like my whole body was contracting and despite all of  the self-meditation cds, visualizations and practice I had done leading up to labor, I couldn’t keep from tensing up.  This scared me because I’d heard stories about women whose labors lasted forever because they weren’t able to relax and let their bodies “open up.”

Fortunately, I had also read an excellent book called Birth Skills by Juju Sundin that taught me some active ways of working through contractions.  The first skill I tried was focusing on an object.  I held a tube of cherry chapstick in my hand and focused on the color and said the word “red, red, red…” over and over again.  I tried to put all of my attention on the color, the way it looked, the way it sounded when I said it…etc.  It definitely helped through a lot of the early contractions.

By midnight everything was ramping up and I decided it was a good time for Brian to call our doula (birth coach).  I felt rude calling her in the middle of the night but she had assured me that’s what she was there for.  We hired our doula way back when I was in my first trimester and it made me feel so much better throughout my pregnancy knowing she would be there for the big event.  She is the kind of woman who makes you feel calm, confident and excited all at once.  She got to our apartment around 1am and Brian and I both breathed a sigh of relief.  It was wonderful having someone there who had seen/done this before and knew what to expect.

She came into the bedroom, where I was lying in bed, and held my hand through a contraction while Brian rubbed my back.  When it passed I started crying and told her I was scared that I would be in labor forever because I couldn’t get myself to relax through my contractions.  She assured me that what I was doing was fine and that my body knew what to do with or without me.

Between 1am and 4am things continued to gradually intensify.  At one point I got the shakes and threw up.  I remember asking our doula if the pain was going to get worse than it already was.  She said no, the contractions would probably last longer and longer but the pain wouldn’t necessarily get worse.

She lied.

And I’m glad she did.  For a few hours I felt very confident in how I was handling the pain, thinking to myself this was as bad as it was going to get.  She swears that she didn’t lie on purpose and that she really thought I had already started transition because of the throwing up, but I think it might be a top-secret doula motivation tactic.

By 4:30am I knew I wanted to head to the hospital.  I’m not sure exactly why because we hadn’t ever timed the contractions.  We’d fully intended to but we were just so focused on getting through labor that we  didn’t stop to time.  I know I could have gone to the hospital hours earlier but I’d heard it was best to labor at home as long as possible since I wanted a natural birth.

We lived less than a mile from the hospital but even the short car ride was unbearable.  By that point in my labor I had moved on to another one of Juju Sundin’s techniques – vocalizing.  I prefer to call it vocalizing, as she does, rather than screaming.  I vocalized a long sustained “aah” vowel while trying to envision myself expelling the pain with my breath.  As the contractions got stronger, I got louder in an attempt to make my sound louder than the pain.  I found this to be highly effective.  Before labor I thought I would be too embarrassed to do this but when the pain kicked in I became my own one woman opera.

I also found that the pain was a lot worse if I was sitting of lying so every time I had a contraction I would stand up and lean my head on something like a high counter.  When we got to the hospital Brian dropped me off in front of the emergency room door while he rushed to park the car.  I stood there panicking because I knew another contraction was coming soon.  When it did I put my head on top of the trash can and aahed my lungs out.  I can still remember seeing the heads of the women behind the emergency room desk watching me through the sliding glass doors.  At first they didn’t know what was going on because I was wearing a baggy hooded sweatshirt that covered my pregnant belly but when they heard my moans they came running outside with a wheelchair.

Inside, Brian opted to sign the paperwork for me while I aahed away with my head on the desk.  It took a while to get up to the labor and delivery floor because every time I had a contraction I had to stop the wheelchair so I could stand up and put my head against the wall.  My water broke almost immediately after we got to the room.  When it did I asked the midwife if this meant it was going to get worse.  When she paused before answering I knew that meant a big fat yes.  And it did.  My water breaking marked the moment when my labor pains went from bad to completely out of control.

I headed for the shower because I’d heard water could help with the pain.  The doula came with me to help while Brian stayed in the room to finish registering me.  At one point the registration nurse asked Brian what religion we were (not sure why that was relevant) and he said none.  He says that within a few seconds, as if by cue, they both heard me from the shower shouting “Oh God!  Oh Good Lord Jesus!”  I was raised in a Christian family and apparently the pain of transition was enough to bring me back to my roots.  I remember feeling so desperate that I was willing to ask for help from whatever of whoever might be listening.

When Brian finished registering, he came into the shower and held the nozzle.  During my next contraction he took the shower head and pointed the water at my crotch.  I was in so much pain that all I could do was scream “Higher! Higher!”  He was totally confused, thinking I meant that I wanted the water to go higher up you-know-where.  It was at that point I realized the whole time Brian thought I’d been feeling the pain in my… you-know-what.  When I grabbed the nozzle and sprayed the water on my stomach he was like “Oh, so that’s where it hurts?”

It’s hard to describe the pain because it was so overwhelming.  Two analogies come to mind:  It felt like being hit by four trains coming from all directions at once, and it felt like slowly exploding from the inside out.  I felt like I was holding on for dear life.

I hate to say this because having a natural birth was one of the best things I’ve ever done and I don’t want to discourage anyone who wants to try it but I want to be honest about what to expect from the dreaded transition.  It definitely lived up to the hype.  I probably would have asked for an epidural if I wasn’t so busy trying not to die.  However – and this is a BIG however – the pain was only truly unbearable for less than an hour.  It felt crazy and terrifying but then it was over!

I think one of the worst parts was the fear.  Every time someone told me I would probably be holding my baby soon I was more scared than excited.  I couldn’t imagine how I was possibly going to be able to get him out.  I remember wishing that they would just knock me out and wheel me away for an emergency c-section.  At one point I even asked if that would be a possibility.

I spent a lot of time, while I was pregnant, trying to visualize my labor and prepare myself mentally.  I pictured myself tapping into some inner strength and rising above the pain.  I wanted to discover my inner warrior.  I hoped I’d be able to use the power of my mind to keep from panicking.  None of these things happened for me.  Instead, during the worst parts of labor, all I could do was promise myself over and over again that I would get an epidural with our next child.

Despite my less than inspiring state of mind, my body did its own thing, with or without me, and before I knew it, it was time to push.  At first I thought I just had to poop.  In fact, I was fully convinced of it.  When the midwife heard that she came into the shower and checked my cervix while I was standing up.  To this day Brian still refers to her as a total badass for being able to do that.  I was completely surprised to hear her say that I was fully dilated.  This was the first time she checked me and I’m so glad too because I think it would have been really disheartening (not to mention painful) to have been checked earlier and heard I still had more to go.

Pushing contractions were painful but not nearly as bad as transition.  They were, however, extremely intense.  The urge to bear down was so powerful that it made me feel like I was going to poop my entire body out.  You know how a rubber glove turns inside out when you pull it off?  That’s how I imagined my body after I was done giving birth – like it was all going to come out with the baby and I would be left on the table inside out, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

It still hurt to sit or lie down so I started pushing while standing up.  I was still convinced that I had to poop so I even pushed for a while on the toilet…until the midwife came in and told me she was afraid I was going to push the baby out into the toilet.  I went back into the room and tried pushing on all fours for a while but that didn’t help.  My midwife kept trying to convince me to use the bar on the bed to get into a squatting position but I resisted the idea for a long time because I could tell that it was going to be a more effective position.  It was kind of like I was trying to cheat and postpone the inevitable by pushing standing up.  I would hold my breath and push with all my might while secretly hoping I wasn’t making progress.  I wanted to push hard because it made the contractions less painful but at the same time I knew I was headed toward another unpleasant sensation.  I was trapped between two bad options.

And yes, at one point during pushing I pooped.  Like everyone, I was scared it would happen but when it did I couldn’t care less.  I clearly remember the midwife wiping poop off my leg with a wet cloth and wondering why she was even bothering.  A little poop on my leg seemed so minor compared to everything else that was going on.

She finally coaxed me up onto the bed and into a squat and before my next contraction hit I looked around the room and saw about ten nurses standing in the background.  My midwife was new to the hospital and this was the first time many of them had seen a natural birth with a midwife delivering so they had come from down the hall to watch.  At this point I was buck naked because I’d been in the shower earlier and I was squatting spread eagle with a light shining on me.  I made eye contact with one of the nurses and she smiled at me as if we were simply enjoying a cup of coffee together.  It was a strange moment but, like with the poop, I was too preoccupied to be embarrassed.

Bubba’s head came out during my very first push in a squat position!  I remember feeling it come out and being shocked that it happened so quickly.  The squat was clearly as effective as I’d feared but I was relieved to have the worst part over.  I never felt the “ring of fire” that people talk about and although I did tear, I didn’t feel it either.  It really wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be.  The rest of his body came out fairly effortlessly and the placenta felt like nothing.

The midwife immediately placed Bubba on my chest and seeing him for the first time was the most surreal moment of my life.  He was this perfect, fully formed, wide-eyed human being and I couldn’t believe he’d come from me.  He cried lightly but as I held him, skin to skin, he looked up at me and seemed comforted.  He looked nothing like what we’d expected.  Brian and I both have dark hair but Bubba was blonde.  I remember thinking his face looked like an old turtle – big eyes with wrinkles underneath, pushed down nose and a pointy upper lip.  The header bar for my blog is a picture of Bubba on my chest just moments after he was born.  It was the greatest moment of my life.

Bubba was born at 7:05am, less than ten hours after I went into labor.  Despite my husband’s family history of giant babies and my lack of control with the root beer floats during pregnancy, Bubba weighed just 6lbs 10 oz and he was 21 inches long.

I consider myself very lucky to have had such a straightforward, relatively easy labor and I was relieved that no complications arose.  When people ask me if I feel proud for having a natural birth I say I feel more grateful than proud.  When it came down to it, my body did all of the work and I just held on for the ride.  The only part I give myself credit for was making my mind up beforehand that I wanted to do it drug-free and making sure I was surrounded by people who would and could support that.

It was the best and worst experience of my life.  However, the best parts by far outshone the worst ones and I am left with nothing but awe and gratitude for what our bodies are capable of.

bubba’s natural birth story – part one/self-induction attempts

It’s been a very big week for us;  Bubba just turned one!  I can’t believe a whole year has passed since his birth.  A friend of mine, April, put it best:

These have been the longest days of my life but the shortest year of my life.

On Bubba’s birthday I sang Happy Birthday to him three times…and cried each time.  I spent a lot of the day reminiscing about his birth – the best day of my life.  I’ve been meaning to post his birth story for…well…a year, so I figured this would be a good time, while I’m feeling all mushy gushy about it.

* I want to take a moment here to warn my dear readers that this may get a little graphic.  I loved reading birth stories when I was pregnant, especially the ones that could give me a real idea of what to expect, so I want to return the favor for anyone else who’s pregnant and trying to wrap her mind around what is about to happen.

During the months leading up to Bubba’s birth, I decided I wanted to try my best to do it without an epidural.  I was terrified but after much debate I knew I wanted to try my best for a drug-free birth.  One of my biggest fears, however, was that Bubba was going to be a giant baby and it would take forever to get him out.  I believe this fear was totally warranted because my husband was 10 lbs when he was born (via c-section) and we are both very tall.  Also, I’d eaten at least two rootbeer floats A DAY during my pregnancy so I was sure I was going to harvest the world’s fattest baby.

Since I knew the longer Bubba stayed in there the bigger he was going to be I decided to try everything I could to make sure I didn’t continue to incubate him too long past my due date.  When I hit the 39 week mark I scoured the internet in search of ways to kick start labor.  I didn’t do anything extreme, mind you, like accupuncture or castor oil.  But I quickly learned that two things seemed to be very effective in starting contractions: sex and walking.  No, not at the same time.

The details of  “Operation Get Baby Out” give you a disturbing glimpse into just how OCD I can be.  First of all, I was scared of going into labor at night because I didn’t want to be too tired when it came time to push.  Therefore, Brian and I would have sex in the morning before work to try to jump start contractions at the beginning of the day.  It usually worked and within thirty minutes the braxton hicks would start.  Then I would go outside and walk back and forth in our apartment parking lot or up and down the stairs to our front door to try to make them stronger.  If the contractions intensified I would come inside to shower and do my hair because I wanted to look nice in the pictures of me in the hospital holding the baby for the first time.  For those of you who like stories with illustrations here’s a picture Brian took of me walking up and down the stairs three days before my due date with curlers in my hair.

I followed this routine every day for a week and each time I was convinced I was going into labor but when I would sit down to rest the contractions always stopped.  Two days before my due date I discovered that the contractions were stronger if I walked on grass rather than concrete (maybe because it required a little more effort?) so I paced back  and forth on the grass next to a dog park for about three hours.  The dogs at the park thought I was a loony and they ran along the fence, chasing me back and forth and barking the whole time.  I drowned them out with the celtic woman music I’d downloaded onto my MP3 player to get me psyched for labor.

The contractions stopped that afternoon as soon as I plopped down on the couch to watch tv and I figured I’d try again the next morning.  However, I never got the chance because my real labor started at 9:30 that night.  Oh, and I’d forgotten to shower that day because I’d been too busy parading myself back and forth outside the dog park.

mads

Moms Against Daylight Savings

I think the thing that challenges me the most about having a baby is the way everything is constantly changing.  And those changes always seem to come with rough adjustment periods.  Every time I start to feel like Bubba and I have hit our stride, some new milestone hits and we get thrown off-course again.  But I guess this just comes with the territory.  There is no way to prevent new sharp teeth from poking through or standing up in the crib at night (without duct tape).  I can moan and groan all I want but in the end I have to accept it.

However, I’m not the kind of person who likes to “accept” things.  Therefore I’ve decided to pour all of my limited energy into a new cause that I’m very passionate about – ending daylight savings time!  While I’m powerless against Bubba’s imminent milestones, daylight savings time has been a huge bump in the road that could be avoided.  All I need to do is convince my fellow Americans that it’s better to have an hour of darkness in the morning than a baby who thinks it’s time to wakeup at 5 am.

After an intense and thorough Google search, I’ve learned that there are approximately 307,006,550 people in the United States.  And according to Google, women make up 55%!  WE ARE THE MAJORITY LADIES!  It’s time to band together and make some change!

And while we’re at it, here are a few other causes I think we should adopt:

The abolishment of skinny jeans.

Designated parking spaces for women with children.

Mandatory sterilization of doctor’s office waiting room toys every ten minutes.

Longer maternity leave.

Ban all waxing (so the women who usually have it done can’t make those of us who are too scared to do it look bad).

No more for food dyes that make kids act like chimpanzees.

I know someday we can make this change happen!  But until then, if anyone has any tips for surviving this recent time change I’d love to hear ‘em.

halloween

Is everyone over Halloween already?  I can’t stop smiling when I think about it.  We went to a Halloween party for parents and babies and it was just so much fun watching all the little roly polies crawling around in their costumes.  I finally got the photos of Bubba’s first Halloween uploaded and wanted to share them.

 

Yes, Bubba was a chicken for Halloween!

Tights and all.

rib/fat update

After my recent post, probably just fat, I’ve been touched by how many of you have written to ask me for an update.  It’s taken me a while to respond because when I went in for the CT scan there was quite the debacle and I was so upset about it that I didn’t want to write or even think about it for a while.  Now I’ve gotten over it so I can share what happened.

I had to fast before the scan so I scheduled it 7:30 am.  While I was filling out paperwork in the waiting room the woman behind the desk gave me a cup of clear liquid to drink.  At first I thought it was water because they’d instructed me to stay well hydrated but as I drank I noticed it have a very strong chlorine taste to it.  I was about halfway done with the drink when I asked what I was drinking and if it was okay to have while breastfeeding.  That was when the woman behind the counter got a horrified look on her face and said, “Oh no!  You can’t breastfeed for 48 hours after drinking that.  They were supposed to tell you to pump two days worth of milk before coming in.”

Well, they hadn’t.  In fact, nobody had even asked if I was nursing.

I left the office without drinking any more or getting the scan and called my pediatrician right away.  I was in a panic because I hadn’t pumped any milk and Bubba has severe allergies to both dairy and soy – the main ingredients in most infant formulas.  Also, he’s always refused to take a bottle, sippy cup or anything else other than my overworked breasts.

The pediatrician told me about a hypoallergenic formula called Alimentum and after several hours of crying and screaming (Bubba, not me) I finally got him to drink it.  Even though the formula claimed to be completely hypoallergenic it contains casein, which is derived from milk, so after a day Bubba broke out in a rash all over his arms.  Thankfully by that time my system had cleared out and I could go back to nursing him.

Everything turned out fine in the end but it was a stressful couple of days.  Every time I run into feeding problems with Bubba it kills me!  I was so mad at the imaging center for their negligence.  I couldn’t stop thinking about what could have happened if I had completed the procedure and gone right home to nurse.  And I was even more mad at myself for my negligence.  After all of the problems I’ve run into with nursing because of Bubba’s food sensitivities I should have asked before swallowing anything.  (That’s what she said.)

After all of this I decided to research alternatives for the CT scan and it turns out I can get an MRI without having to drink anything toxic or expose myself to ionizing radiation.  Why, you may ask, didn’t the doctor prescribe an MRI in the first place?  Because they are much more expensive.  I made a few calls to my insurance company and got them to agree to cover the MRI because I’m breastfeeding.

We have more visitors coming over the next couple of weeks so I probably won’t get it done until after Thanksgiving.  As soon as I do I will post to let you know if I have a broken rib, a piece of fat, or – as I like to imagine – Bubba’s miniature twin who will have to be surgically removed.  He will stay my tiny baby forever and ever and I will carry him around in my pocket.