The Binky

I've written before about L's use of a binky (what we call a pacifier). Such a wee little thing that binky is, but it causes me great consternation. I never planned for L to use one, I was against it whole heartedly while pregnant, but plans sure do change once a child actually gets here, don't they?

Now let me say that I am only speaking of my own personal aversion of binkys - not making any judgements on anybody else's choice to use or not use one. My dream while pregnant was that my daughter would comfort suck at my breast and not even need a binky. Hoping to extend the birth control benefits of ecological breastfeeding as much as I could was a big part of it, but I also had this lovely image in my head of comforting my daughter by holding her close and quietly singing a sweet song to her while she breastfed. I think there may have also been birds chirping, sun rays shining down on us, rainbows and cheery flowers in my dream. But anyway.

As I'm sure you've figured out by now my dream didn't play out in real life. Breastfeeding was awful for me at first, perfect latch, visits with the lactation consultant and all. Very very painful. And as committed to breastfeeding as I was, I was ready to give it up during those first six weeks from the sheer pain of it all. (The pain by the way was chalked up to my fair skin and red hair by the lactation consultant, midwife and physicians assistant at L's pediatrician's office.) Many a feeding I spent in tears thinking blissfully of bottles of formula. And comfort sucking at the breast? Well that went right on out the window. I was barely hanging on just feeding her - there was no way I could have handled the almost constant need to suck she had as a newborn. Most of the time, she was already eating every hour and a half for forty five minutes, more time at the breast would have just been too much for me. So, L got a binky, shattering my beloved dream in the process.

I have a love hate relationship with that little, latex, fake nipple my daughter now likes so much. On the one hand, it saved my breastfeeding relationship with L. On the other hand, L prefers her binky over me for comfort sucking. Which kinda stings - I mean, I would so much rather her turn to me instead of that binky now that my nipples aren't searing in pain all the time. Plus now we get to wean her off it one day which I'm sure will be great fun. Yea, really looking forward to that.

So there you have it. More than you ever thought could be written about a little binky, huh? What can I say? I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. Anyway, I'm off to go spend some time with my daughter, and no doubt, her beloved binky, too.

Homebirth, part 2

First, I'd like to say welcome and hello to everyone that has come here via Hathor. Thanks for stopping by!


Second, I'd like clarify in case it didn't come across the way I meant it to - that quote in my last post ("The first intervention in birth that a healthy woman takes is when she walks out the front door of her home in labor. From that first intervention, all others will follow.") spoke to me about my birth of L. I didn't mean to imply that it might fit all situations and all women. One of the great things about the homebirth movement (can I call it a movement?) in my opinion, anyway, is that it focuses on freedom of choice for women. So I'm not knocking anyone for choosing or wanting or having (since, realistically, there is not always a choice to be made) a hospital birth. That quote just really seemed to sum up, for me, how I feel about particular aspects of L's birth. Also, I know that people can have wonderful, natural, beautiful births in a hospital (I don't know if that's the norm, though). And I'm not totally unhappy with my experience birthing L, everyone was very nice and supportive of my choices about things, including not vaccinating L, delaying the eye goop and vitamin K shot, etc. I just can't help but wonder if I would have gotten the natural birth I wanted if I had stayed home.

Finally, if any of you reading have had a homebirth, could you help me out a little? I sincerely desire to have one the next time around, but I sometimes feel less than 100% sure about how it will go. A little nervous, I guess is what I mean. Did you sometimes feel this way, too? I'm a little concerned that when the time comes and I'm pregnant again and discussing my want for a homebirth people's negative opinions and scary stories (I do not know why women like to pull out the horror stories when talking to a pregnant woman. What is that going to accomplish? Like an expectant mama wants to hear how bad you or your cousin or your sister's best friend's daughter's hairdresser had it in labor? Geez!) will end up swelling my little nervousness into big nervousness and I'll chicken out. Any advice?

Homebirth

I've been wanting to do this post for awhile and have been spurred into finally writing it in honor of the action day for normal birth. You see I want a homebirth next time around. I know, I know, many of you probably think I'm crazy. And I would have too a few years ago.

Homebirth has been something I've thought about many times since I met hubby - my mother in law birthed three of her four kids at home - so it's not a totally foreign concept to me. But, up until my pregnancy with pumpkin I had never thought of it in relation to me, I never considered having a homebirth myself. And for much of my pregnancy it was not a thought I entertained, actually joking with friends that knew how my hubby had entered the world that I would never do that.

Reading Ina May's Guide to Childbirthduring my pregnancy was the beginning of the change in my attitude toward homebirth. The birth stories in that book had a profound effect on me. Strength, acceptance, peace, serenity - these were words that seemed to describe these births I was reading about. I found myself thinking more and more that birth is a natural occurrence, something our bodies were made to do, which led me to want to have a natural birth. From that point I began to really think about how I wanted my birth to go, at least as much as I would have control over.

After reading more books ( The Birth Book, Easing Labor Pain, Childbirth Without Fear, Natural Childbirth The Bradley Way, The Official Lamaze Guide: Giving Birth with Confidence, and others) and a second and third go round of the birth stories in Ina May's Guide to Childbirth I knew I wanted to labor at home as long as I could. I was so stuck on this idea of laboring at home that when it was time to go to the hospital (according to the requirements they give you - contractions 3-5 mins apart for an hour) I argued with hubby and just didn't feel ready to go. I wonder if this was my body telling me something, because once I got to the hospital my labor began to stall.

At home, my labor was something that I was actually enjoying. The contractions, even though they were painful and intense, seemed welcome. It just seemed totally doable. I felt in a groove, going with my body, and only doing what I felt I needed to do at any given time. Once at the hospital, though, things changed. Although I lucked out and got a room with wireless monitoring which meant I could move around and walk the halls, the monitors wouldn't stay in place and the nurse had to continually come in the room or get me in the hall and fix the monitors. Over and over and over again. Totally got me out of my groove. Just checking in and being monitored got me out of my groove. Anyway, the result of all of this was that my labor stalled at 6 cms and I ended up giving in and getting an epidural, pitocin, and having my water broken after 31 hours of laboring on my own. Here's the post I originally wrote about the birth.

This quote from Michael Rosenthal I saw on this photo slide show (warning: birth pics) totally sums up how I feel about this:

"The first intervention in birth that a healthy woman takes is when she walks out the front door of her home in labor. From that first intervention, all others will follow."

For me, I think that was the case. Walking out the door and going to the hospital was the beginning of the end of my natural birth. I hope next time to be able to stay home, in my groove, going with my body, being in comfortable and familiar surroundings, not having to be restricted, not laying in a bright room for an hour while a nurse decides whether or not I'm really in labor before I can be admitted, not being interrupted continually by a woman I've never met to have her mess with uncomfortable monitors strapped on my abdomen, and enjoying my labor and the birth of my next child.

I'm not necessarily ready for another child. But I think about the labor and birth of another child a lot. Maybe I need to redeem L's birth? I don't know, but I've already started to research my options for a homebirth and talk to hubby about it. If anybody has any birth stories they'd like to link to (Emily has some here), or anything to say about childbirth in general or homebirth specifically, please leave a comment, I'd love to hear about it.

Merry Christmas!

I know this is a tad late, but Merry Christmas! I hope you had a lovely (there I go with the lovely business again!) day, even if you don't celebrate Christmas.

Christmas eve and Christmas day were wonderful for us and especially sweet this year as it was L's first. On Christmas eve, hubby and I went on a date since it is the four year anniversary of the day he proposed to me. One day I will have to tell you all the story, it is both funny and romantic. Anyway, we went to see Charlie Wilson's War (good movie, by the way) and just had some time to ourselves. That evening we took L out to see some Christmas lights, which she loved. A local hospital has a pond that they do up fantastically every year with lights and music and we spent the evening walking around the pond, singing along with the Christmas Carols being piped out of the speakers hanging from the trees, and taking pictures of the beautiful lights. It is hard to describe the emotions that were sweeping through me, I was so full of a sweet and soft joy, just thoroughly enjoying the wonderful time I was spending with my husband and daughter. Do any of you know what I'm describing? It's hard to put into words. Let me just say that I am truly blessed.

Christmas day was just as nice, the morning spent with just hubby and L, helping her to open up her first Christmas presents. The afternoon spent with our families enjoying a meal and playing games. Hosting Christmas this year was a lot of work, but so much fun, too! Our meal was potluck, so we had a little of everything, most of which was delicious. The games were a huge hit, especially since the winners got prizes.

Today was spent celebrating my mother in law's 60th birthday, so it was another round of getting together for food and fun with family and friends.

All in all, a pretty awesome last few days. Tomorrow I'm doing lunch with L (not my daughter L, friend L) - we've been best friends since the sixth grade. 14 years! Wow, that kinda makes me feel old. Anyway, that should be really fun, it will be just us girls, and we always have such a good time together. I'm really looking forward to it.

I hope all of you had days just as wonderful and lovely as mine. Merry (belated) Christmas everyone.

I Do Not Know How You Do It

You know, you ladies with more than one child. Specifically you ladies whose children are say, a toddler and a baby. Seriously, how do you do it? I mean, that has got to be one tough gig. A very rewarding gig, sure, but I stand by my assessment that it has got to be one tough gig. Managing one young child all day long everyday is hard enough, but two? Or three? Or four? Or more?? Wow. Managing a gaggle of young kids all day should qualify you to be a CEO of a major company. Seriously, if you can wrangle an infant, a toddler, and a four year old, that seems to be more than enough management experience to run a measly multinational company. Or be the president of a country. That's it, whoever has the most children under the age of five, you have won my vote for the 2008 election. I bet you could run this country better than any politician out there, am I right?

Okay, I'm starting to get a little off track here.

Last week I got to babysit my friend's two year old daughter, K, for a morning. And although K is a lovely, sweet, adorable, wonderful little girl, I felt like I had run a marathon by the time her mom picked her back up! Trying to take care of L and K at the same time was fun, but oh so busy, too. And wow, a toddler is so much heavier than a baby! Granted, K is the size of a three year old, but still. We took a long walk around the neighborhood (no longer than L and I walk on our own, though) and I was so pooped afterward. L was in the mei tai on my front and K walked with me on the slower streets and rode in the stroller on the busier streets. This meant that I got to lift K in and out of the stroller multiple times while carrying L's weight as well. I think it's needless to say that my arms and legs were not only tired, but sore, the next day. Does this make me seem as out of shape as I felt?

And the whole trying to put L down for a nap while K was running around, talking, singing, and making all sorts of cute toddler noise, was an exercise in and of itself. It didn't work so well. How does all that work? I mean, I guess if your baby is used to it then it's not such a big deal, or do you somehow devise a way to get the toddler to be quiet, or what? I don't know.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, but it really made me think hard about when to think about a baby number 2 and some of the issues that might come along with that. Like how in the world will I cope? Or get a baby to sleep? Or keep up with a running toddler while trying to take care of a baby? Beats me, but I guess all you presidential candidates have figured it out, so I probably will too.

Not a proper post, but it's something

I'm sorry guys - I know I've been missing in action this past week. My brother in law's wedding was yesterday and we've had family in from all over the country, and some of them have been staying with us. It's been a crazy busy week and I just haven't been able to sneak away to post.

Proper post coming soon, I promise. Tomorrow hopefully.

I hope all of you have been having a great week!

So Lovely

Wow. I sure do use the word lovely a lot, don't I? I think I counted four times in the last post, alone. Lovely, isn't it?

Also, wow, check this out - The Daily Coyote - "Charlie came into my life when he was just ten days old, orphaned after both his parents were killed. He lives with me and a tomcat in a one-room log cabin in Wyoming." Such cute pictures! Just lovely!

And A Happy Friday To You All

I'm hoping to really knock out some sewing between now and Monday so hopefully I'll have enough to do a little "sew and tell" soon. In case any of you were following along with the Handmade Holidays over at Sew, Mama, Sew, here is the link with all the tutorials on one page. And even if you're a totally newbie sewer, click on over and find some easy projects. Trust me, there's lots you could do, as I'm also a new sewer but have been able to do things by following along closely with the tutorials - most of which have lots of lovely pictures to guide you.

Also, go on over to read Lightening's seven random things meme here. And while you're at it, check out her fantastic new website here. Lovely, isn't it?

I'm going to be adding some new links on the sidebar over there of some lovely blogs I've found. Check some of them out sometime if you have a minute.

Not a very exciting post today, sorry bout that. But I do hope you all have a lovely Friday!

Oh, What A Night

So. Tired. Today.

Our night last night consisted of the following, none of which, surprisingly are conducive to sleep:

One late bedtime in an attempt to provide an opportunity for L to at least see her Daddy once yesterday since he had to work late.

One episode of waking up in a panicked cry, unable to be consoled for around a half an hour, before nursing back to sleep. (side note: can babies have bad dreams?)

One episode of peeing out the side of her diaper, to be followed by a sleep killing diaper change (cold wipes in the middle of the night seem to make the baby more awake - can you believe it?), and twenty minutes of being swayed back to sleep.

Two, count em, two, poop episodes. One at 3:30 in the morning, followed by another sleep killing diaper change, followed by again nursing back to sleep. Then, for her grand finale, a poop episode that promptly went straight up the back, followed by, of course, a sleep killing diaper change. The grand finale also included both nursing and swaying to get back to sleep, but you wouldn't expect anything less for a grand finale, now would you?

You all are wishing you could have been here, right? I know you are. Cause let me tell you, it was great. Or awful. One or the other, I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Lots O' Links!

Jenn's Den: Helping pregnant women and goat lovers everywhere. Especially in the UK.

Yep, that's right folks, not only am I a binky saving hero, but I also like to help out pregnant women and people who loves goats in my spare time. When checking out what search engine queries brought people to my blog this weekend, these two search terms were used by searchers in the UK : send a goat and bloody show or loss of mucous plug after membrane sweep.

Kinda hard to believe both of those search terms lead people to the same blog, no?

In other news, go check out Accountable's blog as she has her seven random things meme posted. And, in case you all were wondering, and I'm sure you were, I still wear shirts from high school, too. Of course, they're t-shirts since that's about all I ever wear, but still. Although it sounds to me like she is able to still wear fitted shirts from high school and that is not the case around here. I still can't wear my fitted shirts from before I was pregnant. Ugh.

And still more other news, if you're the type to lean toward lactivism, as I have found myself doing since I became a mom, then head over to The League of Maternal Justice and consider showing some support for the breast feeding montage over on YouTube. Oh, and read this hilarious post over at Wonderland about the whole brouhaha.

Wow, this post sure had a lot of links. I hope everyone was able to get a good workout from all that clicking.