Category Archives: baby
Draft Birth Plan–comments appreciated!
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For my Bradley Birth Class, I need to submit a birth plan tonight. Since we are planning a homebirth, my instructor suggested that I write my plan assuming a hospital transfer as that is when it will most likely come in handy. Take a look at what I put together and let me know if you see room for improvement or something I overlooked. (Writing it made me really happy we are planning to NOT have to use it!)
Lish and Jr. Stac’s Birth Plan (In case of a hospital transfer)
Introduction:
- Our goal is to have a healthy, natural, intervention-free birth, followed by non-separation.
- People to be present: Jr.Stac, the dad; Ellen, our doula, Kathy, our midwife; and my parents. We would like as many people to stay with us as allowed.
- If interventions are suggested we would like a full disclosure of all risks and benefits associated with the intervention and the R&B of NOT doing the intervention.
Labor preferences:
- I want to be able to eat and drink freely
- I prefer intermittent fetal monitoring and no IV so I can move freely
- Please do not offer any pain medicine.
- I want to use water as a comfort mechanism (want access to bath and/or shower)
- I prefer minimal or no cervical/internal exams. Do not break my water.
- I do not want any students/apprentices in the room during my labor or the birth. I prefer to limit hospital personnel to only those necessary.
Pushing:
- I want to be free to push in any position that I choose.
- I want to push when I want or feel the urge to push; no directed pushing (unless I ask).
- I want hot compress or comparable care to my perineum.
- I want to avoid vaccum or forceps assisted delivery.
- I do not want an episiotomy.
Immediately following birth:
- I want immediate skin-to-skin contact.
- I want to see and keep my placenta.
- I want Jr.Stac to be the one that announces the sex.
- Jr.Stac will cut the cord, but only after it has stopped pulsing (!).
- I do not want the baby to go to the nursery during my stay. All newborn exams must take place as close as possible to me.
- I do not want the baby bathed or given pacifiers, formula, or sugar water
- I do not want eye cream applied or the HepB vaccine given
In case of a cesarean section:
- I would like my CNM to scrub in as “first nurse.”
- I would like my husband and mother there. She can stay with me while dad goes w/baby.
- Following birth, the baby should immediately be skin-to-skin with Jr.Stac.
- I want to be with baby as soon as possible to start nursing.
- All other requests in “immediately following birth” section apply.
Halfway done!
Tomorrow I am 20 weeks pregnant! I can’t believe how fast it has gone. I feel so so lucky that I got pregnant with this little baby after only my second round of Clomid. I am also feeling so lucky that my pregnancy has been uneventful–no morning sickness, baby has looked 100% healthy in every prenatal midwife appointment, and I have been living life completely normally except for the lack of bud light limes this summer 
Jr. Stac and I just moved in new house that WE OWN (I’ll post pics soon) and this entire past weekend we just kept looking at each other saying how happy we are. I don’t want it to end. Everything just seems so perfect, too perfect. But alas, I must keep the good thoughts in and bad thoughts out. Happy thoughts grow happy babies!
Inside this 20 week belly is a very happy and sometimes wiggly baby.
With 20-22 weeks left to go, I am looking forward to feeling the baby move more and for the day when Jr. Stac can feel it from the outside. I am looking forward to getting things ready for the little one, wearing cute fall maternity clothes, picking out our baby names, and enjoying the holidays with family and a big ole baby bump.
Things on the agenda this week–pedicure today, acupuncture tomorrow, and ultrasound(!) on Wednesday. Thank goodness for lunch breaks.
Dear Baby
Baby,
Today you have been in my belly for 15 weeks 3 days. You are about the size of an apple–around 4 inches long. I started feeling your tiny flutters today, and it is the most amazing thing. I can imagine your cute tiny toes wiggling back and forth and your little fingers finding their way to your mouth for sucking. I have no doubt you are the cutest fetus there ever was. I can’t wait to see you at my 20 week ultrasound!
Your dad and I talk about you a lot, especially on the nights when we use our doppler to listen to your tiny heartbeat. It’s so fast and precious! We imagine what you will look like, if you will be a boy or a girl, if your grandparents will go crazy spoiling you. We think about the excitement and nerves that will be running through us when the big day comes and labor starts. (I hope it snows and our Christmas tree is still lit.) We like to argue about what sports you should play–I don’t like soccer because it’s cold and games are long and kids hardly ever score. I see you more of a tennis player We’ve already thought about where we want to send you to school and when we should make you a little brother or sister. We mostly just let our conversations wander instead of making definite decisions. But one thing we know for sure is that you will be the most loved baby in the world. You already are.
We haven’t bought anything for you yet except two Phish onesies. Your dad bought them about 5 minutes after we realized we were pregnant with you. He’s crazy! Actually I guess you could say we also bought you a house! You will love it. There is a perfect little nursery for us to rock you in and a nice back yard for you to run and play. We picked the house because we want you to have a happy fun place to grow up. We already have a painter scheduled to paint your room, but i’ll tell you all about the nursery later.
Keep fluttering away. It melts my heart.
Love you forever,
Mom
A Mother’s Love
It was surprising to me how a ball of cells immediately turned me into a mother. Minutes after seeing a positive pregnancy test, my mind was speeding with questions, concerns, worry. Something I knew for only minutes already had the ability to bring me the greatest happiness and potentially the greatest sadness. It’s all very humbling.
During the first trimester, I was very worried about miscarrying. The downside of being friends with so many women online is that you hear so many different scary stories and pregnancy loss seems to be a weekly occurrence. My heart ached–and still does– for those women and their partners, but my stomach also was constantly in knots knowing the life I was growing could be gone the next day. I had to avoid twitter and Dr. Google more than usual for my own sanity. I needed to fill my mind with positive thoughts.
Now that I am in my second trimester, worry still remains though less about losing the baby and more about if I am providing a healthy enough environment for the little one to flourish. Did I take enough folic acid? Was our decision to decline genetic testing the right one? Does SSRI use within a year of giving birth cause autism? Have the long term effects of Rhogam been studied extensively enough? The list goes on.
Through all the worry though, there lives an immense amount of love. A love great enough that no amount of worry in the world could squelch it. At a wedding two weekends ago, as I watched the bride and groom say their vows, I cried. I cried because I didn’t want our baby to grow up too fast and get married! Someone I have never even met I love a lot. And it’s awesome.
Lish (13 weeks 6 days)
I’m back…and pregnant!!!
Well remember when I said I had a bad feeling about Clomid round #2? Well, thankfully I was wrong! It was that cycle that I became pregnant with the little ball of love currently residing in my belly
That’s right, I’m PREGNANT! Guess date is January 10, 2012.
Jr. Stac and I moved into a new house on Saturday, April 30–11dpo. Per RE’s orders I was supposed to test or go in for a blood test that Tuesday and Jr. Stac kept telling me over and over again NOT to test early. But we all know how that goes. So at 6AM on May 1, I snuck out of bed and tested. There was a really really faint second blue line, like I could barely could see it and I was not sure if it was just a figment of my imagination. I immediately woke up Jr. Stac to have him look at it and make the call. (In the back of my head I think I knew I was pregnant but was in shock.) He looked at it and thought there was *something* there but it wasn’t obvious enough for him to be “positive” that it was a positive test.
So I tried to go back to sleep. That didn’t really work so as early as we could we went to pick up stuff for the new house at the hardware store. I kept asking him over and over “Do you think I’m pregnant?!” I was in lala land and couldn’t concentrate on anything else so we decided to get a different brand of tests and take another one when we got home. Here’s what the second one looked like:
I just said something like, “Okay, that’s definitely a second line. I’m pregnant!” We hugged for a while and then I immediately called my mom. I was shaking a little bit as I said “I am looking at two positive pregnancy tests.” She said in a whisper, “Are you serious?” The rest of the day and week following is kinda a blur. I went in for two beta tests that showed the baby was there and growing. I felt a sense of relief, love, nervousness, shock, and pure happiness.
Over the next several weeks we told our closest family and friends. Here is a video of my grandparents’ and aunt’s reaction to the news respectively.
Starting now, I will be updating this blog frequently. Some posts I plan to share soon include bringing you up to speed on how the pregnancy has been going so far, a twin scare (!), birthing plans, new new house, and how we are feeling about the January arrival of our little one. Thanks for sharing along in this amazing journey, and a special thanks to all of my twitter friends who have kept me sane over these last 2.5 months, answered so many of my neurotic questions, and simply have been a wonderful support system.
Lish, 13 weeks, 4 days pregnant
