Our Birth Plan

I'm gonna go ahead and get a little personal on ya today. Mainly because people like to jump to conclusions about a lot of things when they hear terms like "midwife" and "birth plan". Not that I need to explain myself or that it's anyone else's business, but I don't like misconceptions - I find them highly irritating, particularly when people cling to them - and I'm hoping that talking about it will clear up a few things.

First things first... the issue of the midwife. I'm sure that at one point in time midwives were only used in crunchy-granola birthing-pool all-natural home-birth situations, but let me assure you that this is no longer the case. When a woman says that she's using a midwife, don't jump to the conclusion that she's giving birth in a tree in her backyard. I mean, she might be, but midwife does not automatically equal home birth or even "birthing center" birth. We're using midwives, and we're delivering at a community hospital. My entire pregnancy (with the exception of the kidney follow-up sonograms which were all done in the maternal-fetal medicine department at Johns Hopkins Hospital) has been managed by the team of midwives at my OB/GYN's office. In fact, I've never actually been seen by an OB/GYN in my life - all of my annual check-up visits have also been with the midwives at my practice. There will be doctors available on the L&D floor when I deliver, but barring any major issues, our baby will be delivered by the midwife on-call from our practice that day.

And for the record, guess what else "midwife" doesn't equal? "No Drugs". I have every intention of getting an epidural when it becomes necessary, thank you very much!

Moving on to the issue of the birth plan itself. This is where many older moms (or, for some reason, people who have never even given birth before) will laugh. "Wait til you get there! That "birth plan" will fly right out the window!" Yes, yes, I know... I'm fully aware that as a first-time mom I'm simply not allowed to have an opinion on anything baby- or birthing-related, since I'm completely clueless and have no basis for formulating such an opinion (I hope you detect a hint of sarcasm here). Don't even get me started down that path - I can't tell you how sick and tired I am of being told that I don't know anything, and that every opinion or feeling I've ever had is going to be flushed down the toilet as soon as my baby enters the world...

ANYWAY, birthing "plans" are exactly that - plans - and are written on paper as opposed to being carved in stone for good reason. Maybe some women are psycho about their birth plans but I, for one, am fully aware of the tentative nature of such things. I've never claimed to have an infallible birth plan, and I'm fine with some things changing if they need to. But is it really so wrong to think ahead and consider what I'd like to have happen in an ideal situation? Is it really so wrong to want think through the possible scenarios and outcomes so that I have considered how I'd like to handle things if x, y or z should occur, and to have a written plan in place so that my caregivers can proceed according to my wishes if I'm otherwise unable to communicate them? Call me crazy, but I call that being thoughtful and responsible about my own care and the care of my child.

Maybe you're not familiar with the types of issues that might be addressed in a birth plan. I adapted a birth plan worksheet that I found on BabyCenter.com, because I wasn't sure what all to include either. There were some things that I deleted altogether and some things that I added to make it reflect the issues that I feel are most important to me.

One of my biggest concerns, for example, is that my labor will be stalled or go on too long after my water has broken and I'll be forced into a c-section. With that in mind, I focused on interventions that I might want to have or avoid in order to help avoid that scenario. For example, I'd like to labor for as long as possible without an epidural so that I can remain mobile to help labor progress if need be, with the understanding that I do intend to get an epidural when it becomes necessary (and I don't want to miss that window of opportunity before pushing, either!).

Even more important to me is that my baby be placed on my chest immediately after birth, barring any complications, and that we be allowed to try to breastfeed as soon after birth as possible and before he is taken from the room (again, barring any complications). Also, since we plan to breastfeed exclusively, I specified that we do not want him to have any formula or be offered a pacifier, to avoid any confusion. That's one of those things that might inadvertently happen in the nursery if I hadn't taken the time to put something in writing in my chart. And it wouldn't be the end of the world if he did get a pacifier or something, but if it matters to me and I can do something to try to avoid it happening, then why not?

These are the types of things that I think are important to thoughtfully consider beforehand. If you don't feel strongly one way or another on most of these issues, then maybe a birth plan isn't a high priority for you. But if there are even one or two issues that you feel strongly about, particularly ones that may end up out of your control (like they're happening in an emergency scenario, or while the baby is in the nursery), then it's probably worth at least discussing them with your caregiver ahead of time, and maybe even putting it in writing. For me, since I don't know which midwife we'll be working with, putting it in writing is imperative. I don't know that the person I discuss it with in the office will be the person delivering the baby.

For me, having a birth plan isn't about having it "all figured out" - I'm not that delusional. It's just me doing what I can to ensure that if there are any questions about my preferences when I'm unable to communicate them, there's a resource for my caregivers to refer to.

My uterus is a big fat liar.

We had our first (and God willing, our last) experience with "false labor" yesterday (insert super-peeved-looking face here). I was having contractions all night Sunday into Monday, starting at around midnight and waking me up two or three times an hour for the rest of the night. It was enough tightening+cramping to wake me up in discomfort, so I felt like that was promising. I had my regularly scheduled weekly check-up with the midwives on Monday morning so, given how things were going, I had Ben stay home from work and go with me just in case. We even packed our hospital bags into the car, but I was trying not to get too excited.

Sure enough, at my appointment I was 90% effaced (no dilation yet, but the midwife assured me that effacement usually happens first with first pregnancies) and after hearing my description of the night's events, she said that I was probably in early labor. Wahoo! She advised me to go home, take some long walks, take a shower, make sure I ate something, and come back when the contractions were 5 minutes apart for an hour and taking my breath away. We live about 45 minutes from where the doctor's office and hospital are, so rather than go all the way home we went over to my sister-in-law's (who lives in the area) and had lunch with her and her hubby, and then went to a local park to take a LONG walk. I definitely found that the walking increased the frequency of the contractions and they started getting more painful, so we started to feel very hopeful. They were still at least 15 minutes apart and rather irregular (sometimes as long as 30 minutes apart), so we decided to go home and shower and have some dinner. The contractions definitely slowed a bit while we were at home just sitting, so we went out again to an outdoor shopping area nearby to walk some more. Again, same result - the walking definitely increased the frequency and intensity - and again, we were hopeful. We were pretty convinced that we'd be heading to the hospital sometime in the middle of the night. We were SO excited to finally be on the verge of meeting our little guy!

Except that once I went to sleep for the night, that was all she wrote. I actually slept quite well, which I knew was bad news, and I haven't had a single contraction all flippin' day. I even went out walking and shopping for a good 3 hours and still, nothing :'( All I accomplished was spending some money on myself and the baby, and drowning my disappointment in a grande decaf caramel macchiato and an Auntie Anne's cinnamon pretzel. SWEET.

False labor is the worst.

Baby Watch: Week One

My first week at home was just lovely, as I'm sure you could've predicted. It doesn't much matter what I did or didn't accomplish, just being free to do whatever the heck I felt like doing was simply MAGICAL. Yet here I sit, begging my unborn child to come forth into the world and completely blow all of that sweet, sweet freedom out of the water. Crazy talk? Perhaps.

Nah... I'm ready. SO ready. Still not in the super-uncomfortable, get-this-baby-out-of-me way - just in the I'm-dying-to-meet-my-sweet-beautiful-perfect-little-boy way ;-)

On Monday, I had my weekly appointment with the midwife. Nothing exciting to report, unfortunately. Not sure what I did for the rest of the day, but... ah, who cares! On Tuesday, I slept in and then headed down to my Dad's for a lunch date and an afternoon of visiting. Always lovely :-) I'm a total Daddy's girl. Wednesday my big projects were grocery shopping and baby shower thank-you's - both successful - and I finally cracked the books on Thursday... while watching "Cruel Intentions" followed by "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer", because they were on. Today I slept in, hit Target to pick up a few toiletries for the hospital bag, got myself a heavenly pedicure, reviewed and submitted comments on a manuscript involving work that I did during my time at the National Human Genome Research Institute (my first potential publication, on which I will be 2nd author), and started on some light packing for our upcoming move. My productivity seems to have gradually increased over the course of the week!

Our weekends have been winding down as we approach our due date (is it really just over a week away?!), so we don't have too much on tap for the upcoming weekend. Dinner with some friends tomorrow evening, and probably the usual Sunday dinner with the fam. Probably some laundry too, and walking, and rolling my hips around on the exercise ball. Maybe we'll keep up the packing as well. Probably won't do a whole lot of studying though, if I had to guess. Just being honest!

See, you didn't really miss my blogging that much. It's not terribly interesting these days! But rest assured, friends... this is just the calm before the storm (of excitement)!

If I think it's been tough to blog BEFORE baby...

...I'm pretty much screwed, right?! Haha! I'm really sorry, friends. My blogging hiatus has really been a by-product of guilt more than anything. My evening/weekend to-do list is very simple: get some studying done. Oh, and write baby shower thank-you notes (yikes... a little behind on that!). After making dinner, of course. Having worked all day in my largely pregnant state and arrived home with little-to-no energy left for evening tasks, I'm sure it won't come as a shock for you to hear that I haven't been making amazing progress. So when I consider something like blogging, I immediately jump to "I can't very well sit here and waste time BLOGGING when I should be STUDYING" ...and so I don't blog OR study. It's dumb.

So, it would appear that I have quite a bit of updating to do! I'll give you the streamlined, bullet-point version:

• I'm 38 weeks pregnant! When did THAT happen?! I can't say I'm really feeling any "different" or any closer to delivering, and my midwives haven't done any "checking" yet so I can't really update you on where we stand. I will say that I'm still relatively comfortable and haven't hit that late-pregnancy wall that you hear so many women talk about (the "GET THIS BABY OUT OF ME!!!" wall). Sleep is getting more difficult (more aches + more heartburn + baby dropping onto bladder = more interruptions!) which is definitely getting irritating, so I won't be too heartbroken if he shows up a little early ;-)

37 Weeks

• Baby boy's bum kidney hasn't gotten any better or worse. His abdomen is a little bigger around than it should be because the kidney is enlarged, but it's not big enough to interfere with delivery or anything. As of our last sono a little over a week ago he weighed a whopping 7 lbs 4 oz, so we're looking forward to delivering a big ol' chunker of a baby! He's lookin' pretty darn cute, too...

Eli at 32 weeks

• The baby space is all set up and ready to go! Since we're still living in a 1BR apartment (more to come on the living arrangements!), we've had to "make do" with the space that we have. We're storing our dining room furniture at a friend's place and the dining area has become baby land, complete with dresser FULL of freshly washed clothes, pack n' play with changing table, newborn swing, and bouncy seat. 

 We decided to borrow Em & Josh's baby swing...

Baltimore-sports-themed mobile on the swing, courtesy of Uncle Josh

Yes, that's his dresser tucked away beneath the overhang of the kitchen counter!

• We're buying a house! Waaaahooooooo!!! After a LONG and disappointing experience with the short sale house (which fell through after 3 months of back-and-forth madness), we finally found an even MORE perfect home just when we were about to give up. It worked out well that the sellers are asking to rent back from us until mid-December, so rather than feeling pressured to rush and move before the baby arrives, we'll be staying put and getting to know our little man for a few months in our cozy apartment :-) 

• In case you were a little confused about the "studying" that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I'm also enrolled part-time in an independent study elective for medical school to brush up on my first-year material during this year off from school. It's mainly Step One-driven ("Step One" being the first board exam that I'll have to pass at the end of my 2nd year in order to move on to clinical rotations), so I'm not just going back through all of my old PowerPoints - I'm working with Step One study materials to focus on the stuff that I'll really need to have down for the exam. And as I mentioned before, it's... slow going!

• Quite possibly the best news of all is that I'M DONE WORKING!!! SOOOoooooo fabulous :-) I truly enjoyed the group of people I worked with and adored being a part of such an active, successful CF research program, but DUDE. I have been TIRED. It's so unfortunate that we live in a culture in which it is virtually impossible for most households to survive on one income, which ends up forcing pregnant women to work up until their waters break in the middle of the office. I'm so thankful that I could take some time to rest up and relax before he arrives and that I won't have to return to "work" until school starts next year, but I REALLY believe that it should be standard for women to start paid maternity leave well before they deliver. It just gets downright inhumane to expect women to continue being so active and productive when they have about as much energy and as many aches as someone who is coming down with the flu! Damn women's lib movement. Don't even get me started.

Over the next few weeks (if I have that much time left...who knows!), I plan to do some sleeping in, some studying, some thank-you card writing, some visiting, and lots of RELAXING. As we await the big event, please say a prayer for a calm, peaceful, relatively uneventful delivery for us, and for a negative newborn screening result on the CF front!!! Thank you all for your love, support and prayers :-)

Sweet Summer Escape

That's right folks. We're bustin' outta this joint. Southbound. Beach bound. 

Don't get me wrong... I do enjoy my job. But (pardon my french) DAMN, am I ready for a break! Pregnancy has been wonderful, but it takes its toll. Waking up and hauling my large, sleepy, pregnant butt out of bed every morning is a task in and of itself, much less packing a lunch, driving to work, making it through the work day, driving home, making dinner, keeping up with the household stuff... yes, these are all things that normal people do every day. But when you add "...all while growing another human being" to the end of that sentence, well, it's another thing entirely. Pregnancy just siphons your energy - energy that you'd normally have plenty of, to pour into all of these mundane daily tasks. Not to mention the fact that you expend more energy than normal just walking around, going up a flight of stairs, etc. because you're hauling around more weight. It's like attaching a horse trailer to the back of a truck, which will cause the truck to burn more gas on its own, and then poking a hole in the gas tank. You're burning the candle at both ends, so you run out more quickly!

Anyway, I don't need to tell any of you what it's like to "need a vacation". Regardless of your chosen vocation or life circumstances, we all need a break sometimes. This one just couldn't possibly come at a better time for me. I've felt my motivation slipping at work, the heat is overwhelming (104 degrees today!), we're stressed about the house situation (still hanging in the balance!), and I'm definitely feeling the transition into my 3rd trimester. Not to mention the fact that I'm entering my 3rd trimester and still have no house (and therefore NO baby nursery and NO baby preparations completed). And not to harp on the negative, but we've dealt with some scary, stressful times in this pregnancy as well. Bottom line: it's high time for a vacation.

This year's vacation is particularly special for many reasons. #1, we've rented a fantastic, enormous beach house with Ben's family, so we'll be sharing this glorious trip with Ben's mom, step-dad, sisters and brothers-in-law and their 5 kids. To some people, that might sound like a nightmare. To us, it sounds like the recipe for an amazing vacation full of hilarity and good memories :-) We all get along famously, and I know it's going to be one for the books. Hopefully it will become a tradition. #2, I've actually never been to the Outer Banks, and am super-excited to finally experience it for the first time. I've heard nothing but great things! #3, this will be our last vacation without the responsibility of a little one... our last truly "relaxing" vacation for years to come, I'd venture to say ;-) We're really looking forward to savoring it, though part of me also wishes that our little man was going to be out there ripping and tearing with his cousins! I have the feeling that this trip is just going to serve as one more reminder of how thrilled we are to be bringing Eli into a closely-knit family full of other small children to grow up with :-) Between the amazing set of grandparents he'll have on both sides of our family and the zillion cousins he'll have on Ben's side, this is one lucky kid!

I look forward to posting lots of fun photos upon our return, so stay tuned. I haven't been great about editing my photos lately (I still have so much to share even before this vacation adds to the pile!), but I hope to pick that up again soon. Hope you all have a lovely week :-) I'm gonna go find some sand to sink my toes into!

July 15th

Tomorrow is another "big day" in our sweet little life. We'll be visiting the Johns Hopkins Maternal-Fetal Medicine Department (again) for the follow-up sonogram for our baby boy's kidney. I'm so excited to get to see him again, but I'm also feeling very anxious about the outcome. I know that our God is big enough to heal our baby, and I know that we (and so many of our friends and family, and their friends and family!) have been praying faithfully for this miracle every day for 6 weeks. But I also know that sometimes God's will for our lives doesn't include a "yes" for every prayer that we pray. He sees the big picture that we can't see, and sometimes there is a greater purpose that requires us to endure some difficult circumstances in our lives.

On the one hand, I want to go into this sonogram 100% confident that we're going to see two completely normal, healthy kidneys. I want to be bold in my faith. On the other hand, I want to prepare myself for the possibility that we may not get the immediate answer that we've been praying for. I don't want to leave the hospital tomorrow angry with God. I know darn well that anger is not the appropriate response, but I'm only human, and I'm a mother desperate to give my sweet, innocent child the best possible start in life. I don't want him to be limited in any way. I want him to have everything, but most importantly I want him to have a perfectly healthy body. I'm so desperate to find a way to give him these things, but I can't. Because I'm only human. And so my only choice has been to call upon the power of the Holy Spirit that lives in me and the power of my faith to heal my son. I've put all my eggs in this basket, and I know that it'll be a huge blow if the answer is "no". I really don't want to be angry, but just thinking about it makes me angry. What has he done to deserve any of this? Sure, I deserve all of it, but he's still innocent and blameless and he doesn't deserve any of it.

I say all that to say that we need some prayer tonight. Please continue to pray for healing for our son. Even if tomorrow isn't the day that God chooses to reveal a miracle, that doesn't mean that it won't ever happen. And please pray for Ben and I - that God will prepare our hearts for whatever is to come. Thank you all for your love and support, and most of all your PRAYERS! It feels pretty amazing to know that we have such an incredible network of people to rely on :-)

It seemed like forever...

...but I'm in a very happy pregnancy place these days :) First I thought I'd NEVER grow an impressive baby bump... then one day I had. Then I thought the 20-week sonogram would NEVER come... then it did. Then I thought I'd NEVER get to feel this baby move... and then I did. Then I thought Ben would NEVER get to feel him move... and then he did! As I've said before, pregnancy is like one big waiting game. And it's not an annoying kind of wait, like waiting for your clothes to dry, it's a DESPERATE kind of wait. Like waiting for a super-fun trip you've been planning for months, only 1000 times worse because baby stuff is 1000 times more exciting than anything you've ever anticipated before in your life.

And everyone tells you its going to fly, but it just doesn't... at least in my experience. Until now, that is. I'll say that the first 20 weeks did NOT, by any means, "fly by". I know that that has a lot to do with awaiting the anatomy sonogram, not to mention all of the angst that we dealt with during that time over the whole CF issue. It dragged on for what seemed like all 40 weeks. But these days, now that I've hit all of the milestones that I was most excited for, I seem to be relaxing and enjoying it all so much more (and we all know that "time flies when you're having fun")! I have much more energy than I did in the first trimester - they really weren't lying when they said that I'd suddenly feel human again at trimester two. I still get tired in the evenings but it's much easier to survive the work day, and that was - by far - the worst part of the first trimester exhaustion. I'm getting back to my normal activity level, cooking more, being more productive around the apartment and at work, and even blogging sometimes ;-]

The best part of this second trimester, however, has been bonding with my baby. I haven't gotten to snuggle him yet or hear his little voice, but being able to feel him so frequently now makes our relationship so much more real. Before I could feel him, my only reminder that I was pregnant was my growing belly and the few pregnancy symptoms I've had (namely the heartburn). So my brain knew that I was pregnant, and my body felt pregnant, but there was still some sort of disconnect... like it wasn't really real. I guess that feeling him move around is a constant reminder that there's a little person in there with a mind and will of his own. It's not just something going on with my body - there's a whole 'nother body in there doing its own thing! I used to feel kinda silly rubbing my belly or talking to him - even though I knew he was in there - because it still felt like I was just talking to myself. Now it's quite clear that whoever is in there is not "self" at all, it's definitely someone else entirely (as evidenced by the fact that I can't make him do anything that I want him to do - like move while Ben is trying to feel for him - no matter how hard I try)!

People always told me how neat it is to sort of have your own little secret going on inside you... to feel these movements that no one else is aware of unless you say something... and it is pretty amazing. It's just me and him... he's in there carrying on this silent conversation with me that no one else is aware of, unless I mention that he's moving around. But at the same time, being able to share that with Ben has made it so much sweeter.  In the beginning when I knew that his movements were far too subtle for anyone else to feel them from the outside, I still enjoyed being able to feel him myself but was just dying for Ben to be able to share in the experience of getting to know our son. I wanted it to start to feel more real to him the way it was feeling more real to me every day, and for him to know what it felt like to sort of "converse" with him. Now that we can share that together we're not only starting to bond with our son in a more concrete way, but it's an instant boost to our own bond as well. Watching my husband fall in love with our son just makes me fall in love with him all over again!

All in all, things are going great and we're truly enjoying this stage of our pregnancy. We're baby clothes shopping and thinking about nursery decor and not really worrying too much about the potential and existing health issues that are looming in the background. We still pray faithfully every day for healing for our little guy, and we know that our God is big enough to handle those prayer requests. Whatever is to come, He will prepare us for it and guide us through it. He has already brought us through some seriously difficult times in this pregnancy, and has shown us that His promises are real and enduring. If nothing else, bringing a child into the world will certainly stretch and grow your faith in amazing ways! It's a good thing, because I know that all of this is preparing me for the perpetual angst and worry that comes along with raising children once they're here ;-]