First draft of my birth plan

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ATTENDANTS
I only want the required doctors, nurses, and Kurt in the room. I didn’t have an audience while conceiving the child (that I know of) and I certainly don’t want that many witnesses to Kurt’s execution when I’m pushing out baby melon-head.

MY ENVIRONMENT

  • I want my partner to be allowed to stay with me at all times
  • I would prefer to stay in one room during labor, birth, and post delivery if available
  • Only my practitioner, required nurse(s), and Kurt present (please keep medical students and any roaming hospital personnel looking for something to do away from me)
  • I would prefer to be able to eat and drink during labor
  • I would prefer not to have an IV unless absolutely necessary
  • I prefer dim lighting and for the room to be kept relatively quiet
  • I want to wear my own clothes during labor and delivery
  • I would like to be able to walk around as I choose

FAIR WARNING TO NURSING STAFF
I don’t mind being comforted during labor; however I have a freakishly strong death grip when I’m in pain and I don’t let go. Do not take my hand unless you want to know what it looks and feels like to have a complete loss of circulation in one limb with the possibility of some bones crushing. If you think I’m joking or exaggerating take your cues from Kurt and watch where he stands each time I get a pained look on my face. – He knows!

FIRST STAGE OF LABOR

  • I do not want to be separated from my partner during labor or birth
  • I would like no time limits on laboring and prefer labor not to be augmented unless medically necessary
  • I wish to be able to move around and change position at will throughout labor

SECOND STAGE OF LABOR (PUSHING)

  • I’d like coach and/or nurse to support my legs when I push
  • I’d like to be able to try any position comfortable during pushing
  • Even if I am fully dilated, and assuming the baby is not in distress, I would like to try to wait until I feel the urge to push before beginning the pushing phase
  • As long as my baby and I are doing fine, I would like no time limits on pushing

ANESTHESIA – PAIN MEDICATION

  • I would prefer to try laboring without pain medication
  • If I decide I want medicinal pain relief, I’d prefer…? I’m not sure about this. I need more info before completing this part. All I know is I don’t want to rule out pain meds!

CESAREAN

  • Unless absolutely necessary, I would like to avoid a Cesarean

EPISIOTOMY
This is something else I’m not sure about at this time.

MONITORING

  • I do not want an internal monitor unless the baby has shown some sign of distress

POSTPARTUM

  • Kurt does not want to catch the baby, cut the cord, play with the placenta or anything else that may involve blood, guts, gore, and other such squishy things. – Please don’t even ask him unless you’re prepared to catch a fainting 6’ 4” man
  • If it’s possible I would like to donate my baby’s umbilical cord blood
  • I’d like to have baby’s first bath, assessment, and any other newborn procedures done in my presence, but please don’t hand her to me until she’s been cleaned up
  • I would like to see a lactation consultant
  • I would prefer to breastfeed exclusively and I would like to feed by her demand
  • Please don’t offer anything to my baby at any point especially not glucose water or pacifiers
  • If I am unable to breastfeed – water and formula are ok
  • I would like to have the baby be with me at all times and I would like a cot provided for my partner

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Baby basketball belly

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This morning Kurt put his hand around my basketball shaped belly and said, “dribble dribble”. I thought he was referring to the drip marks on my nightgown and responded with a whiny, “It’s soap!” The new liquid hand soap dispenser in our bathroom shoots soap across the room instead of down into the cupped hand as a normal dispenser should. In my case, my belly catches the soap before it hits the wall or floor. Kurt laughed, “Did you think I was calling you messy?” Yes! – *insert boo-boo lip* He was actually just pointing out that it looks as if I’ve swallowed a basketball (my words not his).

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I found it!

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I think I think I have found my bikini line or at least I have found a line that leads from my belly button to where I last remember my bikini line being. I first noticed this about three days ago. I thought I was just seeing things, but no, the Linea Nigra has appeared.

Today I had another crappy dose of what I’m guessing is heartburn. I don’t really know because before this pregnancy I’ve never felt these symptoms and as far as I can remember I’ve never felt anything that made someone say, “Here, take this. It sounds like you have heartburn.” This morning’s heartburn came about two hours after eating Honey Nut Granola cereal with almonds and then again in the evening after drinking strawberry lemonade.

Overall, the day was good. After work, a friend and I went to a yard sale. I struck up another conversation with the seller but this time I was standing in the shade. It was funny because the lady was commenting on our warms days and then said, “Well at least you don’t have to go through your third trimester in the summer.” Uuummm actually I’m in my third trimester. *grin* She couldn’t believe it. After that my friend and I went to some stores and I bought two Oshkosh outfits for Sophia – I’m not going to discuss how much I spent (even though every item I bought was on sale) because I just learned that Kurt is actually reading this blog. – Love you Honey. :)

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Random Skin changes

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On Saturday I spent the day garage saling with a friend. The day was gorgeous so I wore one of my summer pregnancy tops as opposed to an oversized t-shirt. Except in the shade, I didn’t need a jacket. It was the first time I gave strangers the opportunity to see my belly and the first time people started asking me, “When are you due?” It was a little odd. It wasn’t a good or bad it just caught me off guard. Thankfully I didn’t get any unsolicited advice. I’ve heard and read stories about it, but with exception to my mother telling me what to eat, I haven’t run into it. – Where oh where is a piece of actual wood?

The only problem that I did have was at one sale this lady had two sleepsacks / sleep blankets that were red and had, “Baby’s first Christmas” embroidered on it. They were both new with the tags still on, so I snatched one up and asked her how much she wanted for it. This is how it all began. I now know more about that woman and her twin granddaughters than I ever cared to know. Don’t get me wrong, the lady was very nice and at first it was sweet to hear about her tiny twin granddaughters in California, but after a while I could feel the sun starting to burn my shoulders. I felt like a trapped animal, and she continued with telling me about her daughter-in-law finding two very nice cribs on craigslist for $100 from a woman that had triplets – that’s fantastic, but I can feel my scalp burning now. There was no shade on this woman’s driveway. I should have asked her for some juice or other refreshment – even prisoners of war get water. We finally made our escape when another pair of garage salers were drawn in.

Normally I don’t burn this easily. I’ve heard that the skin changes when you’re pregnant, so here is yet another symptom. I actually did experience skin color changes very early in my pregnancy and forgot to list it as one of my many first trimester symptoms, but I’ll get to that later. For now, on to our irregularly scheduled program…

Kurt and my parents all commented on my sunburn that night and I told them about the garage sale lady. The next day when Kurt and I were in the shower he asked, “What’s that on your shoulder?” He was pointing to the back of my shoulder; gee, I don’t know could you be more vague? “I don’t know. Does it look like a mole? What color is it?” I asked. He described it as a very dark brown ring that was white in the center. Then he asked me if it was a pimple. “Does brown with white in the center sound like a pimple to you?” I was a little freaked out, but as it turns out it was just one of my chickenpox scars that got too much sun – it turned brown while the rest of my shoulder was red and the scar part stayed white. It wasn’t even as freakish looking as he made it out. Remind me never to pay attention to his descriptions of things when he’s not even wearing his contacts. I blamed the garage sale lady for the burn and Kurt said, “I never thought I’d ever tell you this but don’t be so fucking polite! Next time just leave!”

The other skin issue I had was actually one of my very first symptoms that I had forgotten about. My armpits actually got extremely dark. It was February so this wasn’t just some odd tanning and when I say dark I mean three shades of pantyhose darker than my normal winter color. It looked horribly out of place – similar to those people that spend their life working outside in the sun wearing a t-shit and then one day they go shirtless. The parts seem to come from another person and attached to a very pale torso. I stopped using the only product (other than soap) that I use in my armpits. I used Jason Natural – Deodorant Apricot w/Vitamin E Stick without any problems for more than a year – now I use Crystal which is 100% natural mineral salts and Kurt must give my hell about my “magic rock”. *eye roll*

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Fireworks

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As a kid I thought it was great fun to set off fireworks. When my daughter is old enough we’ll probably buy some small firecrackers for her to play with (supervised of course). For now I’d really rather just go downtown and watch the professional fireworks.

I still live in an area where fireworks are legal although legally they’re only supposed to be used on the 4th of July. The reality is that my neighborhood sounds like a war zone two weeks before the 4th and two weeks after. I don’t mind that they’re legal I just wish people would respect the fact that others need to work in the morning and not shell the house at midnight and two am for a month. At 6am Saturday morning, my boyfriend and I woke up to four very loud explosions – not horribly neighborly if you ask me.

If they would actually restrict their bombings to the fourth and maybe New Years, I wouldn’t have any issues with it. It’s not that big a deal for me to sedate the dogs two days a year and keep them in the house. I don’t want to ruin someone’s celebration, but until everyone follows the rules I’m forced to stay home every night lest my malamute starts pulling the siding off the house to try and get in (He’s never actually done that but he does run around the yard too scared to even drink water because he doesn’t want to turn his back on the kids setting off the fireworks.) My husky takes it well (she’s too stupid to be scared) – The malamute on the other hand has had an extremely bad experience in the past with kids actually lighting a whole package of “black cats” and lobbing it at him. Now every year my 120-pound dog shakes like a shell shocked Vietnam Vet at even the tiniest “pop” and he hates little boys.

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Cloth diapers – am I crazy?

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I’ve been thinking about using cloth diapers. Yeah Yeah I know – with advances in technology and ease of use of disposable diapers why would I even want to deal with something like cloth diapers. For once, I’m not trying to do what seems more natural due to environmental reasons, well not really. I’m not afraid of adding some more diapers to landfills – they aren’t as evil as some may think. Many are actually becoming rather green by turning the methane produced into electricity. My “environmental” concern is actually the powder, which turns into a gel when wet, used in disposable diapers to make them super absorbent.

The one of the cloth diapers I’m really considering is the Bumgenius 2.0. I know what you’re thinking – holy cow 17.95 per diaper! That’s expensive! But the one size fits from newborn to potty training age and no covers or extra liners needed. The one thing that I don’t like is the “hook and loop” fasteners AKA Velcro. I used to have Velcro shoes as a kid and I’m afraid that type of closure may not last long. I also read some reviews about the elastic not lasing very long on them. Those reviewers still gave these diapers four out of five stars though. On the upside as long as I do the washing there is nothing extra that Kurt would have to do as far as diaper changes go and he might actually be willing to use them. At this point I have agreed that he can use disposable diapers, I already know I’ll probably never find a daycare that will deal with cloth diapers, so really they’ll be getting the most use while I’m on maternity leave for the first six months – yep I know I’m very lucky I get six months, so I’m taking it! With the schedules Kurt and I are negotiating with our work places Sophia will only be in daycare a maximum of three days a week, so the cloth diapering can still be about 50/50 after my maternity leave.

Using a chart that I found I figured the number of one-size diapers that I would want is 36, so the cost of buying the Bumgenius 2.0 pocket diaper would be $646.20. I used the same chart on some fitted diapers I was looking at (Thirsties fitted diaper). For those I would need to buy three different sizes as Sophia grows along with covers which also come in three sizes. The fitted diapers I was looking at were only $7.75 each which seems a lot better but the total cost including covers would come out to $855.00. The covers were $10.50 each and I figured I would buy the maximum recommended for each size.

The overall cost is higher for the Thirsties and because they’re a fitted diaper and not a pocket diaper they might be harder to get clean.

Ecobaby one-size diapers are the third brand I shall use to torture you. These only cost $13.00 each. They come with snap-in doublers for more absorbency and the closure uses snaps, but they require covers. The total cost for these (using the same chart) comes to $625.50. That’s less than the Bumgenius, but not by much. In addition, according to the same site that sells them they don’t fit very well at birth so I might need to use something else for the first couple of months.

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Pregnancy symptoms and emotional drain

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Ok forget the leg cramp connection. I did it again this morning and I don’t remember dreaming. I’m feeling miserable lately from emotional issues that began last week when a close friend/coworker of mine had a miscarriage to some crappy pregnancy symptoms that are either, coming back or getting worse as I enter the third trimester.

My nosebleeds are back again. I think they were gone for a total of six weeks. I forgot to mention them (along with the fact that I felt like I breathing through a respirator) on my post about my first trimester symptoms because it’s not really that big a deal. It isn’t like gushing – I have to pinch my nose and tilt my head down – actual nosebleeds. It’s just when I have to blow my nose, which in my first trimester was all the time, blood does come out. The closest I came to an actual bloody nose was the three days I spent at a conference in Vegas the first week of last month. I woke up one morning with a stuffy nose so I went to blow my nose and the only thing that came out was blood. I used three tissues – I mention it because I know you live for such details.

The other pregnancy symptom I’m battling is relatively new. I think I’ve had it for about two weeks now, but it truly jumped on my nerves in the past two or three days. I have this almost constant tickle in my throat that feels like there is something stuck. This doesn’t happen merely along with meals and doesn’t get better with fluids – as a matter a fact it can start two or more hours after eating. It feels like I can get rid of it by belching, but that doesn’t actually work. The feeling is worse when I go to bed because laying down causes me to cough and in turn loose sleep.

My emotions from the past week’s events aren’t helping my sleep either though. I keep thinking back to the miscarriage I had nine years ago. I didn’t have a job at the time so I was on state insurance (WIC?). At eight weeks I started spotting and of course went to see the doctor. They told me that it was probably just my body trying to have a period at the same time it would have normally or something like that. I didn’t believe them and so they did a stupid urine test. Of course the hormones still registered because I hadn’t miscarried – I was just spotting. But they didn’t bother doing anything else for me and sent me off on my merry little way. The spotting only lasted for three days and was very very light. Two weeks later I was sitting in my computer operating systems class, and I felt a very cold feeling come over me. I wasn’t actually cold nor was my skin cold to the touch – it was a cold feeling similar to walking into a creepy old house. That night I started cramping up. It was Monday July 13th 1998. At around ten that night I was alternating between lying on the floor and sitting on the toilet waiting for it to come out. Aloud I kept saying, “If it’s going to happen just make it happen.” The “if” was me trying to hang on to the last bit of hope that it wasn’t what I thought. By 11 it had passed in one solid unidentifiable mass into the toilet about two inches in diameter and six inches in length. It doesn’t seem right that my baby had the same burial that many give to a goldfish, but I still wouldn’t know what else to do. I bled for the about the next two weeks.

Everyone at work knew my friend and I are close and that she didn’t want anyone to mention her miscarriage at work, so they came to me on the days that she was gone to give their condolences. That was fine but a few made the comment of, “well she’s still young”. I know they didn’t mean anything hurtful by the comment but to me it’s about as appropriate as commenting at a funeral, “well grandma was old after all”. It’s as if there is no real reason to mourn. Nine years later it still hurts and I still think about what my eight year old daughter would be like. I didn’t actually know the gender I just feel like it was probably a girl. Her name would have been Mikah Jenelle and her due date was February 14, 1999.

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Leg cramp connection

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There seems to be a connection between my dreaming and leg cramps. Last night I dreamed I was in high school again and had just started at another new school. I had located the girl’s locker room and was early for my gym class. The locker room was located down an empty hall behind a thin but heavy steel door immediately followed by two other doors, one literally after another. I sat on a bench across from another early bird comfortably stretched across the bench on her belly resting her chin on her crossed forearms. Apparently I was in a class that was generally just for freshmen and I was a junior. The girl didn’t understand that I wasn’t just new to the school but also to the area. Finally she got it and asked me if I had left a boyfriend back home. I told her, “no but I already have one here.” I guess I was dating a 23 year-old. At this point, I started to wake up and that always means it’s time for the morning stretch – OUCH! I stretched both legs at the same time. Oh why did I do that?! Why did I do that?! Why did I point my toes? I’ve been so good about it lately.

Just for the record, in real life I attended three high schools. I had left a boyfriend at my first high school and I turned down the 23 year-old that asked me out when I was a sophomore attending my second high school. I guess I don’t dream too far outside reality.

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Adventures in Hand-Eye Coordination

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Is sloppiness a side effect of pregnancy? I’m not usually this clumsy. I just made myself some toast and I think the counter received more of my apricot preserves than my toast did. And yesterday I hope none of my co-workers noticed my shirt after lunch. With a few exceptions, I’m generally not a messy eater. Tostadas and Ribs are the only two foods I can think of that I tend to wear as much as I eat. I reserve them for my grubbier – there is no one here to impress days. Now I can’t even eat a piece of fruit without squirting the juice all over myself. Thankfully the fruits I’ve been eating dry clear and don’t leave stains. But fruit juices weren’t my problem on Friday, nope. On Friday I ate lunch and apparently had a hole in my lip or a tracheotomy that I’ve never noticed before. Sometime after eating I got up to use the restroom and saw that I had a creamy white streak down the front of my black shirt. Oh isn’t that a lovely site possibly belonging in a porn movie! It was just cottage cheese – really I swear!

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Things I can’t do

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On Monday I discovered two things I can no longer do. The first is getting off the couch without using my arms to help lift myself off or rolling. I tried to do this without the help of my arms and my stomach muscles (what’s left of them) felt like they were going to split. The other thing was sit in a chair with my feet on the seat and my thighs against my stomach – it simply doesn’t work. My stomach is a greedy ba$t@rd and won’t allow my legs to get that close to me.

Today I had a doctor appointment. I now weight 158 pounds. For those keeping track – I have gained 28 pounds and I’m only on week 25. How on earth does one gain 28 pounds eating fruit? The doctor took out the measuring tape and announced that my uterus was in the right spot – Well that’s just fabulous because I was worried that half of it was in my thighs and @$$.

The doctor also said that according to my ultrasound the updated due date for Sophia is September 27th.

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