Labor & Delivery, Part IV

While I was not thrilled about being confined to the bed for the final portion of my labor, I realized that it was completely unfeasible to deliver in the Jacuzzi bathtub.  What I didn't realize was that the ingrained Westernized medicine practices were going to cause the nursing staff to depersonalize the process more than I felt was necessary.  Despite that I opted for no pain medication and had a doula present as well as a midwife delivering, it seems the general idea of natural childbirth was somewhat lost on this crowd.

Early in my visit to the hospital, I was outfitted with an intravenous (IV) catheter for attaching whatever fluids might be necessary later in labor.  Once I was in the bed to stay, this was then connected to a bag of saline.  Later I was able to feel justified in believing this to be a wholly unnecessary procedure as I overflowed the urine collecting "hat" in the toilet after labor.  Too much info?  Maybe so, but perhaps if another woman out there feels it is an extraneous addition to the process, she may, having read this, feel emboldened to say so (or at least try!) when the time comes.

Still, the saline was doable, despite that it was somewhat more confining and a distraction.  After all, I now had a cord attached to my wrist--which was covered in blood as the IV catheter was poorly inserted and had leaked a small but annoyingly dispersed bit of my 40-50% bonus life juice, aka blood.  More annoying was that noone seemed to notice or care that I was dribbling bodily fluids from my hand, and this was not corrected until several hours after L&D was through and we had been switched to a recovery room.

Chronology got a little hazy for me by this point.  I know what things occurred, but I would be hard-pressed to sort out the order.  One thing I do know is that there was a man, a stranger to me, that came into the room with a complicated bit of machinery.  I was acutely aware of his presence, and it took a small amount more willpower to remain uncaring as I was still naked on the bed and writhing with near-constant contractions, with only a thin sheet covering my groin region.  He seemed familiar with the idea that his presence might not be welcomed and took care to avoid eye contact or even to look much in my general direction.

I had to retain the fetal heart rate monitor elastic band and the contraction monitor (which still amazes me that it even does anything, considering it's a wholly external device) throughout the remainder of labor.

With my doula Sabrina holding my left leg and my darling husband Andrew holding my right, I focused on my musical bear and eye contact with Shana when she instructed me.  There were at least 3 other nurses in the room:  one watching my monitors and two serving as the first cheerleaders I ever appreciated.

As the contractions were building up steam, I began to "push".  This was probably one of the more awkward elements of the ordeal, as I was expected to keep my knees near my chest and make internal gestures VERY much akin to those of excreting a bowel movement.  It was at this point that I found myself immensely grateful for having expelled much of my intestinal contents after that Cajun lunch, prior to beginning hard labor.  Shana seemed surprised when I would begin pushing each time because I could feel the contractions beginning before the monitor ever registered them.  Later I was told that she and the nursing staff had also been amazed at how well I was handling what looked on the monitor to be very rapid and very strong contractions.  Not having any idea what the standard was, of course, I simply and (blissfully?) ignorantly kept chugging along.

Pushing seemed very slow going.  Jackson's fetal heart rate monitor kept indicating that his heart rate was dropping during each push.  Some genius decided that I therefore needed to wear one of those things that shoves plugs in your nose to push in oxygen.  This I did not like.  It was bad enough that I had a cable in my veins pumping water into me.  It was bad enough that two people I trusted were pulling me into a very uncomfortable position, against which I was forced to push--all the while feeling certain I was going to poop on the table.  And then they complicated things further by impairing my airways, despite best intentions to actually increase my blood oxygen (and therefore Jackson's, as well).  I felt I could not breathe and repeatedly removed the offending plugs until they finally agreed not to keep cramming them into my nostrils.

As of this point, my "bag of waters" had not yet broken.  My midwife, Shana, examined me and early in the pushing process asked me if I would like her to "rupture my membranes."  Now, given that I was a little mentally challenged at the time, I was unable to comprehend her meaning.  Erring on the side of caution, I said no, considering that any membranes I had, I would like them kept intact, thank you very much!  I also declined an episiotomy, despite that I had been less than diligent about my Kegel exercises--a mistake which I hope not to make again, though it was hardly the end of the world when I tore, given that it was precisely where Shana would have cut me had she done it herself.

As I continued grunting along and demanding my musical bear be played, word came to me that the baby was visible, at long last.  There was an awkward sensation all throughout my pelvic structure, as though unusual pressure (which of course it was) was being put upon places that were unused to such sensations.  Then progress seemed to stall.

Shana looked concerned and kept having me contort to various tilts to keep Jackson's fetal heart rate up to acceptable levels.  Now I was laboring and pushing at a 30 degree angle in addition to all else.  Finally Shana all but begged me, with a plaintive look on her face, to be allowed to break my water.  Apparently when I pushed, the amniotic sac appeared to her as though a giant water balloon were being squeezed--with the business end aimed at Shana's face!  I acquiesced to what I then understood her to mean by the rupturing of my membranes.

The soothed midwife then carefully inserted an amniohook, and the fountain began to flow.  Pushing became "easier", or at least, more productive.  Around this point, I felt something warm and liquidy dribble down my nether-regions.  I was certain I had just defecated on the bed, but I forced myself to ignore that "fact" and focus on the task at hand.  In fact I had not pooped--that was when my second-degree tearing occurred in my perineum.  The liquid I had felt was blood.

Shana then instructed me that, once the head arrived, I should not push again until she gave the word.  Andrew had begun to get very excited at the sight of Jackson crowning.  All around me people were cheering, encouraging me to hold tight and keep pushing through just that little bit longer.  Perhaps if I had it to do over again, I would ignore them more and trust my own instincts (and possibly thereby avoid tearing), but at the time their constant exuberance was very motivating.

Suddenly, there was a baby head hanging out of me, and Shana alerted me that it was time to pause my efforts.  Andrew looked on curiously as Shana swiftly slid a finger inside and gently pulled a loop of umbilical cord out and around Jackson's neck.  And again a second time.  It had been wrapped around his little neck twice and might have caused problems had I kept pushing.  (Oddly enough, one might have expected this part to be some of the worst pain, but those who had informed me in advance were right--the constant pain and efforts numb the opening to the vagina before the kid's head has a chance to escape, so this event was largely inconsequential to me, sensationally speaking.)

If memory serves me correctly, it was at this point that Shana also cleaned out Jackson's mouth.  Babies generally do not begin to breathe air until the umbilical cord is cut, so it would have been easiest to clear any debris from his airways at this point.  What I had believed all along was confirmed now:  I was having back labor (significantly more painful/uncomfortable than traditional labor), as Jackson had been oriented facing my front instead of my back, so his hard skull was pressed against my spine during the entire evacuation process.

I got cleared to continue, and a couple pushes later, something that felt like and looked like a slimy purple octopus slid out of me.  Shortly thereafter, it was crying and as they asked me if I wanted to hold my baby, I felt like there could be nothing in the world I would want more.  Ever since becoming impregnated, I had felt more complete than ever before, and I was afraid that now that Jackson was a distinct entity from me that that feeling would leave.  (In truth, the feeling of completeness remained until he was fully weaned from nursing, and only then did I begin having "withdrawal" symptoms.)

I know he felt the shock of it more poignantly than I did (though I confess I often forgot that at the end of the ride a new person would be around!), but already it seemed strange and sad to be disconnected from him.  So, gross as he was with birth matter all over, and naked as I was, I hugged onto my slithery little baby.  Well--at least he was littler than me!  He looked like he was a month or two old!  His arms were nice and chubby, his cheeks were good and fleshy, and soon after birth he was already spending much time with his eyes open and lifting his own head.

My baby was born!  I was a mom!

Jackson Edward Adams was born at North Florida Regional Medical Center on December 31, 2007 at 8:19am, with no drugs and after 12.5 hours of labor.  He weighed 9lbs, 15oz and was 22in long (roughly 4508g and nearly 56cm long, for those of you on the metric system), which is about the size of the average 1 month old.  The above image was taken by Sabrina the Magic Doula just as Jackson was making his way into the outside world--which is why you see my right leg in the picture, taken from my point of view, as Shana the Awesome Midwife deftly catches my little bundle of joy.

The fun was not over yet, though:  I still had another organ to deliver.  Stay tuned next week for the placenta and immediate post partum discussion!

Labor & Delivery, Part III

We've all seen movies where the woman is laboring in the hospital bed, looking pathetic or screaming in pain.  When I was brought to the L&D room, I was pleased to find it exactly as I remembered from the walk-through our birth education class had done:  a well-designed bed with all sorts of configurable, Transformer-like parts to facilitate labor and delivery, a rocking chair, a comfy couch, a private bathroom with a Jacuzzi bathtub, and other little touches here and there that really made it seem more like a hotel with easily cleaned floors.  The lights were kept appreciably dimmed, particularly given that by now it was after 11pm.

My contractions (which almost completely ignored the standard durations and frequencies they lie about in prenatal education) relented slightly so that I felt brave enough to try a little food and drink.  I knew I had a ways to go to get to 10cm dilated before my beast of burden would be experiencing the New World, and I wanted to be sure I was sufficiently hydrated and calorically stable.  I downed a bottle of water and some small snack foods.

Now, they say that women don't remember the pain of labor or that they forget the experience afterward.  I felt that I had a very clear memory of the flow of events, though my ability to estimate duration was admittedly impaired due to more pressing matters occupying my everything.  When I initially set to writing down the story of my labor and delivery a matter of weeks after the fact, I had somehow forgotten entirely (until reminded) about this next development as my segue into the Jacuzzi bathtub.

For the first time in nearly 5 months, I vomited.  It was not expected.  It was not pretty.  It was ALL OVER my Hospital Gown of Impossible Modesty and the Transformer bed's sheets.  Well, I didn't like the gown anyway, and I wasn't keen on laboring in the bed either, so off came the hospital gown and, naked as the day I was born, I climbed into the tub to rinse off and continued to labor there a while.

By this point, I no longer cared who saw me naked, so long as they weren't taking pictures.  I was ginormously pregnant and in pain and trying to maintain focus on the task at hand.  Sabrina, the Fabulous Doula, had brought a small kit of battery-operated tea light candles, and we turned the lights down low in the bathroom.  She and my husband Andrew traded turns providing counter pressure on (i.e. pushing a fist hard against) my lower back while I writhed about in the water.  Sabrina occasionally had to escape to relieve her stomach of its contents (morning sickness knows no time/place boundaries), and Andrew often had to trade out because his knees dislike him and kneeling on the tile floor by the tub was not helping them to like him more.

They also tried as best as possible to obey my commands and to take them seriously--despite that I was undoubtedly difficult to interpret.  Sabrina was able to discern my gestures (mostly a lot of grunting, vague hand motions, and attempts to speak through gritted teeth) with considerably better accuracy than Andrew, who is most definitely not a multi-tasker, despite how appreciably calm he seemed to remain throughout the process.  Besides being made to kneel beside the tub and essentially maintain a fist pressed against my low back, my labor assistants were also tasked with two other annoying efforts.

One, the Jacuzzi tub had problems.  The tub had 2 jets on either side, which were both weak and irrationally placed, but still they were better on than off.  An unfortunate side effect of the jets was a perplexing inability for the tub to retain water.  Many various measures were attempted to keep as much as possible from draining; however, despite all valiant efforts, frequent refills were still required, which were made all the more obviously necessary by the horrendous cacophony of the jet intake when the level dropped too low.  This helped me, in a way, as a distractionary technique, despite being a somewhat aggravating development.  

The other major task I imposed on Sabrina and Andrew was to continually restart a musical pullstring teddy bear.  The entire time I was laboring at the hospital, this bear needed to be played for me to listen to the soothing sounds of Rock a Bye Baby.

Occasionally, I was forced to leave the tub and get checked for my "progress" on the bed.  Still I managed to get most of my monitoring done in the tub.  For those not in the know, during labor the hospital staff put these elastic bands around your belly with measuring instruments attached to them.  One is for measuring the baby's heart rate, and the other is for (mysteriously) tracking the mother's contractions.  During this eternal and hazy period of labor, I was grateful for the lack of a clock in sight.  All I could do to track time was to tolerate the occasional 15 minute bouts during which the staff insisted I don the elastic bands--and with only moderate petitioning, they let me use the waterproof ones (boxed region) so I could stay in the tub!

So, looking like some horrible science experiment, I writhed naked in the bubbling, cacophonous tub while wireless electronics were strapped to my insanely swollen midsection and teeth-grindingly painful contractions wracked my body.  Good times.  I once hinted at the idea that I might need painkillers after all, but Andrew quickly reminded me that I did not want them and sternly indicated that I should not ask again.  I didn't.  And I thank him for it, though I know if I were more insistent, he would have relented.

At 7cm I had still been lucid but my communication skills were rapidly diminishing again.  By 9 cm I could scarcely say "bear" to indicate that my focus needed restarting.  My nurse had a shift change, and a new crew came on.  These women flowed into my room and took up positions all around me.  Shana (remember my midwife?) had been hanging by the sidelines most of the time, often whispering inaudibly with the nursing staff (which I later learned was to show amazement at how I was laboring).  Now she informed me that I could no longer leave the bed.

Lying naked in a roomful of strangers would ordinarily be unnerving, but I had some scant coverings on my lower half, and anyway, I reasoned, these people see this sort of thing all the time.  I made up my mind that I did not care:  there were more important things imminent.

The time to start pushing had nearly arrived.

Labor & Delivery, Part II

****Warning:  This blog entry is somewhat graphic in its descriptions.  Do not read while eating lunch!  The author accepts no responsibility for food in your sinuses or sprayed on your friends, family, coworkers, or electronics.****

Labor contractions had begun at 7:45pm on December 30, 2007--which would have been my grandfather's centennial birthday had he not followed his own advice that "no one should ever live past 95."  The chart we had drafted in MS Excel was being used, and we learned that my internal twinges of pain were running 7 minutes apart.  Not so bad!  

[Well, they were bad.  Still, I have a high tolerance for pain, it seems, so I was doing well enough, given that I was in labor.  What did it feel like?  That was always my concern when considering the pain of labor.  I knew it would hurt, but I didn't know how it would hurt.  For those of you who wonder the same:  the pain is primarily in your cervix.  It's a frustrating sort of pain because you cannot touch it.  You cannot massage it or poke it or access it directly to alleviate the sensation.  Your cervix is surprisingly similar in appearance to the head of a penis (gross picture of extracted cervix available here).  When the male gives birth, it's just to a swarm of sperm, which are well suited to zoom on out of his penis.  But imagine giving birth to a several pound child through a similar hole?  Granted, the cervix is "designed" to expand a bit more than the male urethra.]

After a few steady contractions at 7 minutes from start to start, we contacted Sabrina the Magic Doula, who turned out to be at a small gathering a ways away.  Expecting several hours of labor, and not wanting to yank her from fun to work so early, I told her she could take her time coming over.  After we got off the phone, my contractions immediately changed to every 2 minutes.  Andrew called her back to say never mind, please come now!  She was already en route.

The next step was to inform my midwife.  Since the midwives in our practice worked on an on-call basis, I wasn't sure who I would get and was a little disappointed that Shana was the one to answer and not Jane, my preferred practitioner.  Andrew called the hotline and Shana asked to speak to me.  She asked me how my contractions felt, presumably to ascertain whether or not I was just experiencing Braxton-Hicks, and then proceeded to tell me not to bother coming to the hospital yet since I could still talk.

By this time we had assembled an arsenal of belongings to bring to the hospital, including what turned out to be an extremely useful case of bottled water.  Trusting Shana's judgment, we decided to stay home awhile so that I could spend more time in a comfortable environment.  Given that I was decidedly UNcomfortable, I put on some loose and modest clothing and sank myself into a nice bath, just as Sabrina arrived at the door.

My friendly stranger sat down calmly on the toilet and helped soothe me through my tubby time contractions.  Between the rapid fire agony, she shared some great news with me:  she was pregnant!  I tried to feel happy for her at the moment, but I have to admit, my mind was literally trying to be elsewhere.

Shortly thereafter, I had my "bloody show."  I had thought I'd already had it when something small and snotty and pinkish had ventured out of me a day or so prior.  People talk about the mucous plug and describe everything but the size.  It's BIG.  You will definitely notice when your mucous plug exits!

Leaving the tub and drying myself, I changed into a maternity tank top and some comfy bottoms--an outfit which I naively believed I would be wearing during my remaining hours of labor at the hospital.  We called Shana to say that we were on our way, and Sabrina followed us to North Florida Regional Medical Center in her own car.

As often as women give birth, I can honestly say that I have never seen a woman laboring in a car.  I was a little embarassed by the experience, not to mention worried about the upholstery in the van, so I tried as best as I could to hide my personal agony from those in neighboring vehicles.  Andrew later told me that it was of no use as people were still looking in the windows at me like I was some deranged lunatic.

Arriving at the drop off for the Women's Center at the hospital, Andrew left the van for Sabrina to park (at her offering) and came upstairs with me to check in.  I wasn't fond of the desk clerk, though I suppose it's not really her fault--she was just doing her job.  Still, I felt like she was so cold hearted when she looked at me skeptically and asked how close my contractions were.  At that point, they were so close together that I could barely gasp out an answer of "very" before the next one started and was clinging onto Andrew for support in standing.

Skeptical Nurse directed us down the hall to triage, where I was told I had to wear the Hospital Gown of Impossible Modesty.  Andrew waited with me, trying to be a comfort at a time in my life in which comfort was just a distant memory.

After an eternity of probably 15 minutes, the triage nurse arrived, and for what seemed the millionth time since becoming pregnant, a total stranger became intimately familiar with an area of my body not meant to be shared with such a variety of people.  She confirmed my contractions were true labor ("Good job there, Sherlock") and announced that I was 3cm dilated and that the baby's heart rate was fine.

It was time to get a room.

ToBP

Toward the end of the pregnancy, moms-in-waiting are encouraged to make more frequent visits to the OB/GYN or midwife.  During one such visit, the midwife I saw indicated that she wrote in my file that I was suffering from ToBP.

ToBP (or TBP) is a very common condition and nothing too serious--or at least, nothing anyone else takes seriously.  It's an acronym for Tired of Being Pregnant.

And she was right.  I was very tired of being pregnant.  I was also just very tired.  And sore.  And constantly having heartburn.  People kept telling me I would have relief once the baby "dropped".  Not so.  He was so large that it was almost indistinguishable when he did hang a little lower inside my belly.  And he kept kicking me.  Hard.

It's not unusual, therefore, for women to start feeling a little resentful of their wee one.  I began asking the little dear to hurry up and come on out, as I was sure he was sufficiently done cooking in the oven.

About a week before my due date, I wrote a diatribe denouncing all the "evils" of pregnancy that a woman experiences, even when things go perfectly well.  For example, the worse a woman's morning sickness, the better, they say.   (I kept track on a calendar of every time my nausea turned productive.  Jackson was VERY healthy.)

My conclusions then were somewhat superficial, though I still support them more than a year since:

1. Women deserve to be thanked for enduring an entire pregnancy, regardless of whether or not they were good parents afterward
2. The only reasons women willingly get impregnated subsequent to the first time are either induced by alcohol or the result of some form of amnesia, possibly both
3. The first child was probably the result of alcohol or amnesia, too

Sure, there are couples out there who naively seek to deliberately create their own temporary opaque human aquariums.  These people are also usually the ones who have a difficult time conceiving.  Coincidence?  I think not.  These types remind me of the beer called Celebration, put out by Sierra Nevada.

The back story:  A completely awesome group of people gathers each Saturday night at a house in Tampa.  One night, while I was a regular attendee, an unsuspecting member of our group purchased a 6-pack of Celebration.  He took a sip of his bottle and pronounced it foul and undrinkable.  Of the 10 or so of us there that night, nearly every one proceeded to then attempt to try a taste of something so putrid it needed to be experienced first hand.  A final assessment of Celebration deemed the flavor reminiscent of beer that had been regurgitated and strained through dirty pantyhose before being rebottled.  

"Oh, it's terrible!" 

"Let me try!"

Now, I'm not essaying to tell people not to have children.  Far from it!  But it's not all roses and sunshine.  For a year and a half, I never once slept a full night through.  For the first 6 months of Jackson's life, I spent a great deal of time wearing clothing covered in spit up, since he had reflux issues.  Conception, pregnancy, birth, and infancy are not for the delicate of manners.  They are gross.  Period.

And then...well, I have historically been a typical Floridian, feeling chill at 72F.  I used to keep my thermostat set to about 80F or 82F in the summer, and was quite fine with it.  However, the last month of my pregnancy was spent burning hot.  In December.  With the air conditioning running.  Poor Andrew, my darling husband, suffered manfully while I pushed the thermostat down to 62F at night, kicking off the blankets because it was sooo hot.

We were ready for Jackson to find the light at the end of the tunnel and venture forth into a brave new world.

Doula Selection

After reading about doulas in our prenatal books, Andrew and I decided that a labor doula would be very helpful to have.  Our reasoning was that:

1. We could afford one (in the end, we paid about $575)
2. Outside of ourselves and hospital staff, we had no local network of support during labor
3. With my hip malfunctions (from that cruel hormone relaxin) and my cervical disc herniation (from a pre-conception car accident), we wanted someone who could help me be as comfortable as possible
4. Andrew's general level of sympathy is not very, shall we say, "developed" and he was honest about that upfront -- he wanted me to have the best possible experience.  (n.b. Andrew entered this one; it does not mean he was wanting to shirk his responsibilities as a father at the birth--just wanted help!)
5. Given the stress of labor and delivery, it made sense to want someone a bit emotionally removed who could remain clearheaded and help to enforce our preferences and rights as parents-to-be

So, I queried my midwife for suggestions for a doula.  At first she was reluctant to offer any, stating that whichever midwife from the practice was on call would stay with me during my labor.  (Ironically, she turned out to be the midwife on duty, and perhaps it was because I had a doula and perhaps not, but she was NOT around much at all until close to pushing time!)  Eventually she surrendered the name of a local midwife named Daniela.

I called Daniela and scheduled an informal interview with her at our home.  Andrew researched online for appropriate questions to ask her, and we added a few of our own:  just what exactly is it that a doula does?  After we had a chance to interrogate our prospective doula (who turned out to be a midwife as well, specializing in home births) about any manner of things, including the name and number of her hairdresser (her hair was fabulous!), my husband and I conferred.

While Daniela was perfectly agreeable, she was also somewhat mousy.  She seemed affronted by our unusual questions (which were likely the result of a certain amount of anxiety on our part) but tried to hide it while remaining reasonably cheerful.  Then we struck gold:  she had a back-up doula!

As Daniela was both doula and midwife, she seemed overly qualified to the point where it was practically insulting for us to hire her as "only" a doula.  Her back-up doula, however, was a doula AND a massage therapist, which was exactly what we had hoped to find.  We politely requested Sabrina's contact information so that we might interview her as well, and in the process I fear we may have offended Daniela--though I suspect she was secretly glad not to have further dealings with us, the "crazy" couple with the odd sense of humor!

Andrew and I were nervous about a second interview, but we were better prepared this time around.  Still, we felt little need to pretend to be people we were not since our true personalities were likely to resurface in the excitement of labor and delivery.

Sabrina was a godsend!  From the moment she arrived I felt very comfortable with her, almost as though she were my own sister.  She even bears a strong resemblance to my actual sister!  While at first she was rather uncertain of how to interpret our strangeness, Sabrina quickly warmed to us and seemed to even enjoy our often unexpected injections of humor into the whole process.

One thing that was very impressive to us was her apparent level of organization.  She had paperwork for us to complete with basic information about ourselves and what restrictions and allowances we wanted to have in place at Jackson's evacuation from my uterus.  Her payment plan was very straightforward and reasonable--and it included a free prenatal massage!  For control freaks such as ourselves, Sabrina was the ideal candidate.

As we only met her a month before my due date, she returned on only 2 or 3 other occasions before the birth itself for training sessions.  Sabrina had recently learned some new techniques for helping laboring moms to cope with the pain.  Andrew and I accepted our tutorials, which included an emphasis on changing focus.

One lesson in particular involved us holding a piece of ice inside a closed fist for a given duration.  We had to look around at various objects and focus on basic concepts about them:  green couch, wood chair, the feel of carpet on bare feet, etc. while trying to maintain steady breathing and minimal awareness of the ice.

Any laboring mother can tell you that ice is no substitute for the real deal, but for learning a basic trick to use in labor, ice sufficed quite well.  [Please, if you try this yourself, exercise caution as prolonged exposure to ice can severely damage your skin!]

Everyone has their own individual preferences and comfort levels.  When it came down to it, Sabrina was chosen by us because not only did she exude confidence, but she also helped us to feel relaxed and comfortable.  Giving birth is stressful enough an experience that anything that can be done to mitigate that stress rather than exacerbate it is much appreciated by all those involved.  Andrew and I knew that we could rely on Sabrina to help serve as an ambassador to hospital staff, someone who would state and reaffirm and enforce our individual preferences in dealing with both medical professionals--and ourselves!

Separation Anxiety

One of my goals in writing this blog is to highlight some of the things no one seems willing to talk about with pregnancy and child-rearing.  I'm a fairly candid person, so I'm not too shy to describe some of the less appealing parts along the way.  Among such seldom-mentioned experiences are the sometimes painful consequences of the hormone relaxin--and worse.

Throughout my pregnancy, there were frequent surprises.  Andrew and I had read the books that are published on human gestation, so we knew that the excessive production of gas was "normal."  When I had a resting heart rate of over 100bpm at 3 months gestation, that was also fairly "normal", though I normally have between 60-70bpm.

What we were not prepared to experience, however, was what my midwife termed as a change in my 'environment.'  When she says environment, though, she doesn't mean that I'm in a new place.  She means that my lady bits have changed in pH and other chemicals may be lurking in the dark.  These changed environs do not combine well with sensitive skin.  Enter my darling husband Andrew.

Darling husband Andrew became mad at me; he had developed a rash.  Suspicions arose on both our parts as to how he came to develop such a rash -- and only as a consequence of coitus.  This was the second trimester, the alleged golden period of pregnancy in which both partners are back at it like rabbits.  We, on the other hand, were questioning one another's honesty and integrity regarding STD cleanliness.  Luckily we trusted one another enough to ask the midwife what could be the cause.  She had a brilliant solution:  prescribe me nipple cream.  Problem solved!  His rash cleared up after a few applications of topical cream, but afterward...intercourse became more sparse in frequency.  Getting some action now meant a fate far worse than pregnancy -- "cock rot", as he called it -- of which he was naturally terrified.  He was grouchy; I was defensive.  Let's face it, have a burning member is only good when it's a metaphor, right?  But there was not a thing I could do to ameliorate the situation.  (If we were good at the whole condom thing, there wouldn't have been a pregnancy in the first place.)  While we were able to work through it, a certain spark had been lost in the bedroom that took a very long time to return.

Several weeks afterward, we traveled across the state so Andrew could be best man in a wedding.  On the beach.  In the afternoon.  In August.  In Florida.  (Perhaps the setting helps explain why that marriage only lasted until the first anniversary?)  I digress.

The night before the wedding, Andrew and I stayed in a hotel room de gratis, and snuggled comfortably (if Platonically) into the expansive king size bed.  Being the good rule-follower, I had developed techniques for left-side lying in order to help the baby.  (They almost never explain it, but supposedly it has something to do with blood flow to the uterus.)  Pregnancy was never greatly comfortable, but I had begun to find it tolerable and increasingly agreeable.  Overnight, literally, this changed.  During the night, the pillow I kept between my legs snuck its way out.  I awoke to find myself immobilized.

This is not a metaphor, either.  I had to beg Andrew to help me turn onto my back, which caused me to make all sorts of unattractive faces.  Further facial contortions resulted when I finally managed to be removed from the bed.  "Things" were not where they belonged.  What I didn't know then is that they would remain out of sorts until 4 months later when I had the opportunity to eject my darling little parasite.  Still, he was kicking away to his little heart's content to let me know everything was just fine and dandy inside.

Walking became a challenge.  This was especially entertaining as, while on this ill-fated trip I received good news:  I had been hired for the position I had interviewed a few hours before hitting the road.  Bad enough I had had to make sure my new employer was aware that I was an egg waiting to hatch, but I felt obligated to pretend that I was in perfect health.  So, the herniated disc in my neck?  Oh, no problem!  The painful exercise of moving?  No big deal....

Finally I surrendered and got a referral from my midwife to a local physical therapy group.  There I was told the cause of my pain:  the hormone relaxin, present in all pregnant women, had gone ape-doody crazy and decided to segregate the bones of my pelvis to ridiculous levels.  While the therapy helped briefly, typically by the time I walked back my car to drive home, all the corrections and repositionings had gone haywire already, and my poor pelvis was in pain again.

The muscles of my buttocks, lower abdomen, and all the little bits that hold things together were strained and pained from the extra workload shirked by my joints.  To top it off, over time the misalignment shifted so that the bones of my pelvis were grinding together at the front.  Good times, good times.

Yet...for all that, somehow I made it through the last 4 months without losing my sanity.  It helped to know that it could have been way worse (i.e. preeclampsia, miscarriage, anencephaly).  Even more it helped me to know the cause--and that the end was in sight.  My hip problems disappeared immediately post partum.  And knowing that, in the end, I gave birth naturally to a nearly 10lb child helped explain all the prep work my body was doing to make it all possible!

Nice to meet you!

With my health insurance firmly established, I gladly began regular prenatal visits to a local midwifery group.  They are a WONDERFUL bunch of women!  The experience was far more relaxing than going to an ordinary OB/GYN and much more comfortable an atmosphere.  Finally the time came when they wanted to schedule me for an ultrasound.

On August 13, 2007, Andrew and I got to see our little guy for the second time--and learned that he had a dangler between his legs.  My midwife had suspected as much, based on his heart rate, but the little tripod images we saw onscreen confirmed things:  we were having a boy!

We were really excited and pleased to be told that all his parts were in the right places and developing properly.  By that point I was 21 weeks pregnant, and Kippy (Jackson's in utero name) was 3 weeks large for his gestation.

The tricky part was that Andrew and I had found names challenging for us when it came to boy names.  Girl names were easy enough, and we had 2 selected with coordinating middle names.  Kippy's male designation forced us to work very hard at finding a suitable name for our little alien invader.

We had begun calling him Kippy from the start as I learned of my pregnant status shortly after a unique encounter with a local vagrant of sorts.  Known around my home town of Palm Harbor as "the Can Man," this ragged bicyclist would travel around collecting aluminum cans in his bike basket, presumably to generate money for his beer fund.  Only a few hours before I tested positive for having an inner child, I had worked up sufficient nerve to ask the Can Man's name.  He very shyly had responded, half-hiding behind his long blond mane and ball cap, that his name was Kippy.  So, Andrew and I decided the name was appropriate until we knew what we would really call our future munchkin.  After all, the original Kippy was an avid recycler (like me) and was silently trying to help the world around him by ensuring aluminum was not wastefully discarded.  Riding a bicycle around town (though probably a DUI-cycle in reality) was both giving him regular exercise and saving on carbon emissions that a motorized vehicle would have produced.  What better role model could our child have?

So after we saw his dangler, Andrew and I worked long and hard to choose a name that would fit our offspring.  He had to have a solid, strong name, since he had no chance of being tiny.  Eventually we discussed the idea of naming him John and calling him Jack.  There were a few problems with this, though.  One, his middle name was certainly going to be Edward, and our last name is Adams.  John Edwards was running for democractic candidacy for the office of president, and John Adams was already the name of two past presidents.  We did not want to overstate his possible future attainments before he was even born.  Secondly, the name was too bland, too generic.  He would not be "google-able".  The final problem was that Jack was already a nickname of mine.

When I was born, my sister was only 18months old, so she could not say Jessica.  Her initial attempt, Jecca, morphed over time until Jacka and finally Jack became a name to which I would willingly respond.  This would not be so troubling except that my niece and nephew only have two aunts, both named Jessica (it was SUCH a popular name!), so to differentiate between us, they have always known me as Auntie Jack.

Tossing ideas around some more, we settled on Jackson Edward Adams.  This did not eradicate the excessive presidentiality of his name, but it didn't have to do so.  My darling husband, Andrew, shares a birthday with former president Andrew Jackson, for whom he was named.  Jackson is my son, therefore the son of "Jack".  The name seemed fitting and was suitably strong and was not a particularly popular name--or so we thought.

As it turns out, Jackson had been rapidly gaining in popularity as a first name, placing as the #36 name for boys in 2006 and #33 in 2007.

Surprisingly, we've also frequently received the response, "That's a good, Southern name" quite often.  Who knew?  Though it appears to be a fairly common mid-western name as well.

Back to the ultrasound.  Andrew and I are geeks.  I don't mean we go about biting the heads off birds.  We just are willing to recognize that there are some things we obsess over that others don't (like finance and budgeting).  Within 5 hours of having the goop spread over my belly and watching Jackson suck his thumb in utero, we had ripped the DVD of the sonogram into an Internet-ready video file, added some Dido music, burnt some CDs, uploaded the show to Veoh, and emailed the link to everyone who might care enough to open an email from us.

Experience the thrill for yourself!  

(The text that appears onscreen says "Boy!!!" and the arrow points to the indicator.)