37 Week Ups and Downs

What was possibly our last outing as a childless couple, Peter and I went to Peer Gynt last Saturday at the Guthrie. It was a great story, originally written by Ibsen and translated into a play by Robert Bly. The acting was great and it was fun to finally see the new building. It was also a great distraction from pregnancy.


OK, I cut my head off of this picture because suddenly, I just don't care what I look like and the photo reflects this attitude. Yesterday someone came to the door and I was wearing these same flannel pants and a non-maternity shirt that barely even began to cover my belly. It was very embarrassing. The baby officially engaged 2 days ago and now I have stretch marks. GRRRREAT. While "dropping" I had many braxton hicks contractions, some of them were even painful. I continued to have them during the night and they were strong enough to wake me up. I was hopeful that I was in labor, but after a warm bath and a few glasses of water they stopped. I was depressed for the next couple of days.
Today Peter and I went to my 37 week appt. with our midwife Lynn. There was good news and bad, first of all the good news, the baby is healthy and I am 1 cm dilated. The bad news, I gained 5 pounds in one week because of water retention. Yikes. I also found out that I am positive for group B strep which necessitates an IV of antibiotics during labor. Nothing major, but I'm still disappointed.

Jonah at 6 weeks

Here's a new picture of our nephew Jonah after a bath. He's getting to be so big!

Still Pregnant

This is honestly what I see when I look straight down.
OK! Full term! Time to move on out!
Peter and I are going CRAZY waiting for all this to happen. We're hoping for early next week (Super Tuesday would be good), but my due date is actually 3 weeks away-Feb. 18.
How do women handle waiting this long?!?

More Madeline Ann

The new family, Curt, Amy, and Madeline




Great Grandma June and Madeline:


Cute little cap:


Madeline and I:


Aunt B and Madeline:


Peter and Madeline:


This tiny doll-like dress was Amy's:

Madeline Ann Jacobson

Here she is! Madeline Ann Jacobson, the proud daughter of my sister Amy and her husband Curt. What a cutie pie! She weighed in at 7 pounds and 6 ounces and measured 20.5 inches in length. In the picture she is about 4 or 5 hours old. Mom and baby are healthy and little Maddie (Maddy?) is a pro at breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding 101 and Newfangled Cloth Diapers

Being an advocate of all things organic, natural, earth-friendly, non-toxic, etc. has lead me to choose to breastfeed and use cloth diapers. Since starting to live green, I have associated all of my lifestyle choices with being a fringe or alternative way to live. This is apparently NOT the case with breastfeeding, but it still IS the case with cloth diapering. Let me expand. Breastfeeding. Wow, the benefits of breastfeeding are widely known. I think most people are now aware, in fact, I recently attended a main-stream hospital class about breastfeeding, and there I learned that most, if not all, doctors now not only RECOMMEND breastfeeding but they insist that it is THE best thing to do for any baby, especially in the first 7 months of life. Almost every person for our childbirth class also attended the breastfeeding class. Apparently around 60% of women breastfeed when they are in the hospital, and around 30% breastfeed for the first 6 months or so. That's impressive! Considering the fact that doctors (not just midwives and nurse-midwives) are advocating for breastfed babies is a good sign that these percentages will keep going up. It is amazing to see the medical community support a practice that does not involve pharmaceutical companies and, even more corrupt, the food industry that promotes infant formula as necessary and (historically) as the better option to feed infants. Way to go medical community! I see a correlation with the ever-increasing demand for organic food, which, I think, is mostly due to the fact that people are looking for a way to be healthier. There are many other reasons to buy organic that aren't as popular as the health benefits, reducing pollution and supporting sustainable systems being two of those, and that is reflected in the lack of parents who use cloth diapers but instead fill the landfills with disposable diapers. I don't know of many people who use cloth diapers. It became real evident that it is a great minority of parents when I failed to find modernized cloth diapers, diaper pins, or even a diaper pail for non-disposables in any of the major baby retailers like Target and Babies R Us. There are differences between breastfeeding and cloth diapering. Breastfeeding is easier, safer, and much cheaper than formula feeding. Pair these things with the health benefits of colostrum and mother's milk and you have an obvious winning choice. Cloth diapering is not as convenient as disposables and the really cool cloth diapers are a bit of investment. Of course, disposables add up to crazy amounts of money spent over the 2-3 years that little humans poop there pants, but he idea of spending $10-$20 per diaper sounds crazy. Plus, it's gross. I can see why you would want to toss those dirty poopy diapers in the garbage. Peter replied to this idea with the quick quip, "It's a lot grosser when you notice the extinction of entire species because our landfills, which are full of diapers, leach toxic materials, and take over natural habitats." Well, he said something along those lines. He's a bit of a radical, but, he's right. I have researched the cloth diapers available online and have accumulated some really great options. We're going to try the bumGenius diapers, the one size (fits 7-35 lb. babies) with removable fleece and microfiber inserts. Check them out at cottonbabies.com. Very cool. We are also trying the G Diaper, a cloth cover with a plastic liner that you can put either a cloth insert or a flushable/biodegradable liner in, and hopefully reuse the cover a few times before needing a wash, some of the standard prefold flat diapers, and the Seventh Generation biodegradable disposable diapers. We'll have to announce how each performs. It's easy to be on a soap box now before I've even changed one diaper! Ahhh...having time to do endless research on baby things...paradise while hugely pregnant...

Double Baby Shower

Last Saturday I experienced my first baby shower. It was a lot of fun! It was a joint shower with my sister Amy. She's about 3 weeks more pregnant than I. We literally sat and opened presents for hours. It was very overwhelming. I received so many wonderful things! The shower was put on my Aunt Bev, sister Beth, and family friend Lexi. Thanks a million! I appreciate the yummy little treats and all the decorations! Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful gifts as well!



Amy obviously has three-third-trimester-weeks on me.


This little cap was once upon my dad's head! Cute! I also got his booties and baby blankets. How antique.

Let the Nesting Begin

Yesterday I was suddenly in a tizzy about all the things that need to be done before the baby is born. Knowing that the nesting instinct is a sign of upcoming labor, I feel even more excited about having this baby, and having him soon. I am almost 35 weeks along, so really, I have between 2 and 7 weeks to go. I'm pretty large, so I can't do that much work in a day, so I need to get busy. I made a huge list of all the things I would like to get done, from installing a bathtub upstairs to making sure I have enough diapers and packing my hospital bag. This first picture is of the baby's room. We chose the colors before we even knew the sex, but it does seem more masculine than feminine to me. Most of the baby furniture came from IKEA. The blue dresser and crib are both from there. The rug is actually a Menards find. It's pretty cute and matches well.


Here is the other side of the nursery. My mom found the diaper changing table at a garage sale, it's nice. I have purchased some Seventh Generation diapers, some G diapers (a washable outer diaper with disposable/flushable/biodegradable inserts), and I have registered for some other all cloth diapers. I don't know which we will prefer, so I thought it best to start with a bit of an assortment. Not shown is my wonderful recliner/glider from Babies R Us. It was a splurge but it is by far the most comfortable chair in the house. The other glider in the room will be recovered (another task to work on) and be moved down to the living room.


This is another IKEA find. The cube totes hold about 100 items of baby clothes each, it's amazing. This is our collection of hand-me-downs, from age 3 months-2 years.


Roz, Peter's mom, made this adorable fleece outfit. My grandma embroidered the cute little bib.


My mom brought this bassinet over tonight, it will live downstairs. I prefer it. We're thinking of having a "baby area" downstairs as well so we don't have to run upstairs for every diaper change.

Pregtastic

I have discovered a wonderful podcast called "Pregtastic." It's a free podcast that I found on itunes. Each podcast is about 45 min-hour, which is good, I don't like podcasts that only last 15-20 minutes. Each podcast starts out with a few pregnant women introducing themselves by giving their names, professions, how far along they are in their pregnancies, and 2 ups and 2 downs in their pregnant life so far. For some reason, I just can't get enough of this. I think it's a pregnancy thing to be paranoid and worried about everything-it's all so weird-so hearing someone else have the same concerns and questions is such a relief. Each show also has one or two guests, the one I listened to today had someone from that show Notes from The Underbelly. I've never seen the show, but is was interesting. The second guest was a certified midwife and expert of Lamaze. It turns out Lamaze isn't what we all think Lamaze is. It is a philosophy that means, "birth is normal." Breathing is a part of it, but no specific techniques, lamaze is more individual, each woman needs to figure out what it is that relaxes and distracts her. It is ridiculous to think that all women would be soothed by structured breathing exercises (hee hee hoo hoo...). Anyway, it's a decent podcast. Now that I only have 5 or so weeks left to go I better stay on task. There are about 100 Pregtastics backlogged.

Childbirth Class #1

Peter and I attended our first of two childbirth classes today at the hospital in Hutchinson. There were some good things, some disagreeable things, and lots and lots of information. The biggest shock to me was how big of a role the coach plays during childbirth. I (almost) was glad that I was going to be going through the physical birth with all the pain and exhaustion rather than being the coach, who is pretty much in charge of keeping the mom focused during some crazy times. We watched a few videos, one of them showed 5 different births, a c-section, an epidural birth, a completely natural birth, and 2 birth where other pain meds were administered. During all of the births, the coach, be it the husband, boyfriend, mother, sister, doula, or whomever was up and totally supportive throughout the labor, which in every case seemed to last FOREVER. In every case, except the one were the woman got an epidural nearly immediately, the woman in labor was at her wits end at some point. It was at this point that the coach had to step it up with encouragement, massage, breathing exercises, and whatever else. It really does take some major support to give birth.
We had our first exposure to lamaze breathing. It is not easy. As well as making sure the mom gets oxygen during each contraction, the exercises are also a distraction-they take a lot of concentration. Peter and I were told to sit across from each other and do the breathing patterns together while making eye contact. We weren't very good at it. We will have to practice quite a bit if it's going to help at all.
We're going the natural route- no drugs- and this class was mostly about taking drugs, so it wasn't all that useful. The instructor made it sound ridiculous to want a birth without an epidural. To me, it seems an epidural is all great, except for the fact that you are then confined to lying on a bed hooked up to quite a few monitors. I would rather be walking around, in the tub, on the birthing ball, etc. Of course, it became quite evident today that if I'm not going to have an epidural, Peter and I will need to really work together to execute this birth. The main thing an epidural does to have such a high success rate is to relax the mom during the heightened contractions that come right before you push. With all the pain, it's (probably) really hard to relax your legs (tightening them will only tighten up your nether regions), and just plain let your uterus and cervix do their thing and not get worked up as your organs and bones get pushed all over the place. The task at hand is to practice relaxing and I guess do some visualization. That whole mind over matter bit. Yikes. A month or two ago I had a real "bring it on" attitude about birth. This was before I had trouble sleeping every night (either my hips ache, my back hurts, or pressure on my stomach makes me feel like I'm going to barf) and pretty much got winded and worn out doing ANYTHING at any time of the day. So, now, I am a little discouraged about being able to find the energy for labor. Rumor has it that I will feel more emotionally charged up and ready as my delivery date approaches.
Interesting birth-related factoids from the day:
1. A girl baby has her first period the week of her birth, it's caused by hormones passed from the mother.
2. Babies can look a lot like Darth Vader when they come out (really white and veiny and just pretty scary).
3. The baby's skull plates actually overlap as he passes through the pelvis. Poor little brain.