True friends help you give birth - Part III

For the rest of my pregnancy I didn't see much of Jen. We got together once to discuss my birth plan but that was about it. (This was the first time I met Jen's daughter who has since charmed me to such a degree that I have become convinced that that she and Joseph will need to get married some day. Or she can marry Elle. Whatever, I'm open minded. I just want her for my daughter-in-law.)

They day before Little A was born I was at my regular 38 week check-up with my ob. My doctor made my year when he said he would induce me the next day. I was so excited! The next day was Jen's day off at the clinic. She would be able to be there for the birth. Our we'll-make-it-work-if-we-can plan had worked. As I was leaving the exam room I ran into Jen's nurse in the hallway. I snagged her and told her the news and we squealed and jumped up and down. She went and grabbed Jen and then the three of us squealed and jumped up and down.

Jesse and I headed to the hospital early the next morning. Jen arrived shortly after I was hooked up to the pitocin. The three of us played cards for a while until the contractions made it too hard for me to pay attention. (My birth story is here if anyone is interested. Don't worry, I'm not going to bore you with every detail of it all over again.)

Once the contractions really got painful Jen became my rock. Oh, don't get me wrong. It was wonderful having Jesse there too but it was different with Jen. Maybe because she had been a doula before, maybe because she's a woman who has given birth. All I know is that she always seemed to know exactly what I needed. My back rubbed, my hand held, something comforting and reassuring said. She didn't leave my side for the entire 10 hours or so that I was in labor. When I was pushing a started to panic a little bit she talked me through it. I really credit Jen with letting me have the kind of birth experience that I really wanted.

Immediately after Little A was born I laid back in the hospital bed. I was overwhelmed by emotions. I felt so happy and satisfied and proud and relieved and awed. I looked up at Jen (who was still standing right by me holding my and) and I felt a sudden rush of sadness. I thought "Here's this amazing person that's come into my life and given me an incredible amount of love and support and this short, intense period and now I'm not going to be able to see her anymore. Now that her job is done, our relationship is done too."

Almost as soon as that thought crossed my mind I felt Jen give my hand a squeeze. She leaned over, looked me right in the eye and said "This is not over. You and I are not over." Through gulped back sobs I agreed. Yes, we would be friends beyond that day.

And that's exactly what we've done. We've only gotten closer since Little A was born. We talk all the time, we text constantly. We watch each others kids and get our families together for game nights. She has me over to her house for baked goods after old woman scar me and I buy her fake spider webs at the craft store. We have laughed together and cried together and gotten drunk together. She has seen me at my best and at my worst. She puts up with my mood swings and neediness and neurosis and I put up with her ........ I don't' know. I don't have to put up with much. I guess I tolerate her love for brewing beer. There's not much we don't know about each other but we each accept the other for what we are without judgement or condition. Hell, she's seen me naked and even that didn't send her screaming for the hills.

I know I sometimes complain about not having enough friends but I need to try to remind myself of all that I've actually got. I several family members that I am very close to, some of whom even feel like sisters to me. My brother, in spite of being surly and curmudgeonly, is always there for me. I have a few good blog-friends who have enriched my life in ways I would not have imagined possible back when I started this blog.

And I have Jen. I was looking for a friend like her for a long time and instead of finding someone like her, I found her. I am very, very lucky.

One year ago today I mooned a bus full of people.
Three years ago today my blog had a guest poster.
Four years ago today I continued my obsession with pooping while giving birth. This this time with a twist.

True friends help you give birth - Part II

When I was pregnant with Elle I woke up one morning unable to hear out of either ear. "Oh no!" I rationally thought. "I have pregnancy induced deafness!" I made a quick trip to the doctor where I was schooled on how pregnancy can't make you deaf but it can cause huge amounts of wax to build up in your ears which is gross and weird but not nearly as dramatic as what I had imagined.

I was older and wiser when I was pregnant with Little A so I was not too terribly worried when I woke up one morning and found myself unable to hear anything. I was just glad it happened on a day when I had a regular pre-natal check up scheduled.

When I got to the doctor's office I waited and waited and waited to be seen. Finally a nurse came out to the waiting room to tell me the doctor was running behind and would I mind seeing Jen instead? I eagerly replied "JEN?!?! I LOVE JEN!! THAT WOULD BE GREAT!!" (Because when you can't hear anyone you start to think they can't hear you either unless you are very, very loud.)

The nurse gave me a smile that said "Its my job to be compassionate and caring but I'm glad I don't have to deal with you anymore because your reaction freaked me out a little bit" and had me sit back down in the waiting room.

Moments later Jen's nurse came to bring me to an exam room. Here's the funny thing about Jen's nurse. She and I actually used to work together before Jesse and I were married and we were pretty friendly. We hadn't seen each other in years and it was lots of fun catching up. And by catching up I mean I screamed at her about my waxy ears and she marveled over exactly how huge my ass gets when I'm pregnant.

When Jen came into the room we hugged and then I yelled at her about my waxy ears. Considering how much I had liked Jen the first time I met her this wasn't exactly the second impression I wanted to make. "I was so glad to have made your acquaintance! I am gross and produce excess excretions!" Jen was cool as a cucumber though. She didn't even flinch, just set about trying to clean my ears out.

Only she couldn't do it. And if you want to feel awesome try having ears so waxy that even a trained medical professional can't get them clean. "I'm going to get my nurse." Jen muttered.

If you want to feel really awesome have someone you used to be friends with but have not seen for years weigh you and then hold a cup of your pee in their hands. Then have them try to clean out your blocked ears. There is no way to look or feel when cool when you have two people trying to dislodge wax from your ears. (In the interest of full disclosure I have to say that at one point another nurse was called in to consult on the situation. I wish I was kidding.)

At this point I was nearly in tears. Jen and her nurse were being great about the whole thing but I really don't like the center of attention like that. Especially when the reason for all the attention is that my body's byproducts have super-glue powers.

I did what I always do when I am in awkward situations. I joked. Badly. "Haha!" I chuckled weakly to the nurse. "Aren't you glad we get to see each other again? You're learning all kinds of new things about me!"

And to Jen "Who else can you bring in to help that I know? My husbands boss? My old daycare lady? That boy I had a crush on in 4th grade?"

And without missing a beat Jen replied "No, we're going to have him come in for your first cervical check."

And in that instant I knew that I didn't just want Jen to be my doula. I wanted her to be my friend. It's not often that you meet someone who can make you laugh, really laugh, while someone is standing next to you squirting water into your ear to create a kind of earwax soup. And when you do meet a person like that? You find a way to hang onto them.

We all know that friend making is not my strong suit though. It would be several more months until I really felt like Jen and I had become real friends. And all it took was for me to squeeze a person out of my body.

Four years ago today I thought Elle was a boy.

True friends help you give birth - Part I

I have talked about my friend Jen very briefly before on blog but I want to talk about her a little more today. I figure I should balance out some of the whining about not having friends with a story celebrating one of the really amazing friends that I do have.

Jen and I met by accident. She's a nurse midwife at the clinic I had all my pre-natal stuff done at when I was pregnant with Little A. During this time I had been searching for a doula to be there during the birth but I had not been having any luck finding one. In fact, I had even asked at the clinic where Jen works if they knew of any and the people I asked had just given me a blank stare. It's a pretty good bet that if a person has no idea what the word you just used means, they're not going to be able to help too much.

One day my ob was running really behind on appointments and I was asked if I would be willing to see a nurse midwife in his place. At that point I would have seen a janitor if it would have gotten me out of there faster so I agreed. I have to admit that when I heard the word "midwife" I was expecting to see someone who looked like this so I was a little surprised when instead this young, sassy looking redhead walked in. I liked her right away.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a talker and a sharer. Give me two minutes and I've give you my life story. That is, if I know you. If we've just met I'm more likely to stare at you in panic and terror if you try to talk to me. I'm really not so good at meeting new people. Right away though there was something about Jen that made me feel at ease. Two minutes after she walked into the room I was spilling my guts all over the place. I was telling her the sort of stuff that I don't even put on this blog and you know that's got to be personal because, um, hello?

The best part of the conversation came when I told Jen I was having a hard time finding a doula. She was pretty irritated that I was having such a hard time finding someone. Err, not irritated at me, irritated at the people who had refused to help me because I was having a child for a gay couple. See, before Jen became a nurse midwife she was a doula so she understood what an important role a doula can play in a birth. She told me about some places I might have more luck finding a doula and then, to top it all off, gave me her number at the clinic to call in case I needed more help.

Her number. Haha. She didn't know this at the time but I don't call people. Not people I don't know. I won't even call to order a pizza. As I walked out of the clinic that day I held her phone number in my hand and thought to myself "Man, I wish I could have her as my doula." I thought about it all that day and all of the next. Then I did something I never do. I picked up the phone and I called her.

Imagine my surprise and delight when she said that not only would she love to be my doula but that when I left the clinic that day she had been thinking "I wish I could be her doula."

And so it was set. We agreed that she would be my doula ..... if I gave birth while she was not at work. That was ok with me though. I was just happy that there was a chance she would be there. I was happy I had found someone I had clicked with so well. What I didn't know at the time was that the next time I would see Jen, things would not have as happy an outcome.

One year ago today I answered some questions about surrogacy.
Four years ago today I was still worried about pooping while giving birth.

How many of your friends have seen your vagina?

I sent my friend Jen a text today that said "can you call me when you get a chance? I have a question about my period" Before I even had a chance to think about how lame/weird it is that I'm 31 years old and I still have questions about my period, my phone rang. It took her about four seconds to call me back after getting my text. In addition to being a nurse/midwife she really enjoys answering people's stupid questions about their periods. And she's just a really good friend.

After answering my period question (which I will not be going into here because I like to be able to pretend that there's a line I won't cross when it comes to revealing every little thing about my body functions) she said "If you're still concerned about it you can come in. I've got a couple of open spots tomorrow."

Uh. No. Thank you, but no.

See, I first met Jen when she was covering OB appointments for my regular doctor when he was off delivering a baby. I saw her a few times throughout my pregnancy so of course at some point along the way she saw my lady bits. When she was my doula as I delivered Little A she got to see my lady bits in glorious, vivid detail. I never felt weird about it because at that point, even though I liked her a great deal, I still saw her as a medical professional.

Since A was born Jen and I have become really good friends. My family has gone over to her house for dinner. We've had Game Night together. We've gone out to drink wine and eat fancy food. She went rock climbing with me.

And now that we're such good friends I feel weird about having her see me "down there". I know it's just a stupid hang up on my part but it still feels weird. Maybe that's just me. Or is it? Would you feel the same way about it? Let's have a poll shall we? We shall.

It's all good

I was not exepcting to be sitting down and writing out a birth story this soon (I thought I would still be pregnant at this point!) but little A is here and I could not be happier about it. I don't have any pictures to post because I want to respect my IFs privacy but trust me, he is a beautiful boy.

I had to be at the hospital at 5 AM to get the induction going. I got about 2 hours of sleep the night before because I was just a bundle of nerves. Unfortunatly the hospital screwed up the order for my pitocin so they didn't even get hooked up until nearly 8. They hooked me up and I dozed off until around 9 when I was able to start feeling contractions. Jesse and I played cards until my doula (Jen) got there at about 10. Then the three of us played cards for the next half hour or so before my contractions suddenly got a lot more intense.

My doc checked me and decided to go ahead and break my water at that point. Contractions really got a lot stronger then and all of the sudden I couldn't keep still. I would sit on the birthing ball for a minute then I wanted to walk around then I wanted to lean over the bed then I wanted to go back on the ball. My IFs got there just as the nurse was telling me either I had to sit still or they were going to have to put internal monitors on me because they kept losing track of the baby with the external monitor. Also, for some reason the monitor wasn't picking up my contractions even though I was having them big time.

I agreed to the internal monitor and it's a good thing I did. As soon as we got it hooked up we saw that the baby's heartbeat was dropping with each contraction. They turned off the pit thinking that he might not be tolerating it and that might be what was causing the deceleration. Almost right away my contractions were half as painful as they had been on the pit. It was heavenly. Jen had me change positions a few times thinking that maybe the baby's umbilicl cord was getting pinched and that's what was causing the drop in heartrate. She was right because all of the sudden his heartbeat was steady and fine. The bad news was that the pit got turned back on because my contractions were becoming more erratic. As soon as the pit was back on the contractions went back up in intensity.

The next few hours were kind of a blur. I labored in the tub for a bit but I didn't really like that. I spent a lot of time leaning over the bed while my amazing doula rubbed my back and my amazing husband held my hands and kept telling me over and over how proud he was of me. My IFs would pop in every so often to see how I was doing but I think it made them a little nervous to see me in so much pain. I was so glad that they were comfortable enough with letting me labor on my own without feeling the need to check in every three seconds. I think B is a good calming influence on J so it made a big difference that he was there.

Around 4 I finally caved in and asked for some IV pain meds. I'm so glad I did! I was having really, really intense, painful contractions every 3 minutes but I somehow managed to doze off in between them. I would kind of sleep for a couple of minutes then then a contraction would start and right away Jesse would jump up to hold my hand and Jen would rub my back. They did this for every single contraction I had for two hours. I don't think I would have made it through without them. I was so out of it that I kept wanting to tell them stuff but I couldn't really seem to make my mouth work. Several times I wanted to try to describe to them the funky dreams I was having but I couldn't make the words come out.

Remember that this is only my second birth and my first without an epidural so I really didn't know what to expect when it came time to push. All I know is that all of the sudden it went from "Is it ever going to be time to push this baby out?" to "Holy cow! It's time to push this baby out!". My IFs were called into the room and I started pushing. I mostly kept my eyes closed but at one point I looked around and was amazed at how many people were in the room. Me, Jen, Jesse, my doctor, a nurse, a student nurse, my IFs, a baby nurse, a student baby nurse, a student paramedic (maybe two even) and a guy with a mop. Ok, maybe not the guy with a mop but the rest of them were in there.

I pushed for about 20 minutes and holy crap, they are not kidding when they refer to it as "The ring of fire" are they? I was not aware of it at the time but the baby's heartbeat really dropped at the end and the doctor ended up giving me an episeotomy (something I had hoped to avoid) to get the baby out quicker. Little A came out with his cord wrapped around his neck but as soon as it was undone he was ok. The doctor tried to lay him on my tummy but I said no, to give him to his dads. A weighed in at 7 pounds 6 ounces and was 19 inches long.

The doctor started stitching me up and I was watching over his shoulder as my IFs held their new little boy. Jesse was holding my left hand and Jen was holding my right and I just sank back in bed and said "Oh, it's all good". (I'm getting weepy typing this out.) I was so happy to see my IFs with their son, I was so happy to be done with the labor, I was so proud of myself for doing it without the epi, I felt so much love and support from Jesse and Jen. I know it sounds cheesy but at that moment everything was just so good and so wonderful and so right.

The rest of my hospital stay was nice. It was nice to rest and get real sleep at night. I got tons and tons of cuddle time with A. We tried nursing but didn't have much success. J, being his typical nervous self, was worried that he wasn't getting enough to eat so he pretty much stuffed him full of formula around the clock. He would bring him to me to nurse with formula still still on his face. That was a little bit of a let down but it was still nice to hold him and be close to him. He's a really cute baby, looks a lot like his daddy. When it was time to say goodbye I really wasn't sad at all. I was suprised at how "ok" I really was. I was mostly just looking forward to getting back home with my own babies.

I'm so happy with how everything went. I admit I had pretty big expectations but everything really went even better than I could have hoped for. Now I'm just concetrating on resting and recovering (because I really did forget how sore you are after giving birth) and pumping (I'm up to about 5 ounces a session). Jesse has off from work until Monday so I really get to take it easy for a couple more days.

Hormones are making me weepy but I don't want to cry in front of anyone because I don't want anyone to think I'm sad. I'm not sad, I just find myself crying for no reason several times a day. It only lasts a minute or two and then I feel better but I'll be glad once my hormones kind of come back under control. I worry that people are going to think the wrong thing.

Anyway, I suppose this had been long enough. I need to go take a bath. Doctors orders.

I doula, you doula, we doula

I haven't posted about this very much but I have been trying for a while now to find a doula to attend the baby's birth. I've had zero luck for a long time. There aren't a whole lot of doulas in my area and the ones I've been able to track down have all turned me down. Several have refused because I am working with a gay couple. A few have refused because I'm not willing to commit 100% to a medication free birth. I was pretty sure that I had exhausted every avenue availible to me but then something really great happened.

On the day I was supposed to have my 24 week ob check up I got a call from my doctors office telling me that my doctor was way overbooked for the day and asking if I would mind seeing a certified nurse midwife instead. I agreed and I'm so glad that I did.

The nurse midwife was awesome. You know how sometimes you meet someone and you just click right away? It was like that with her. We talked about everything pregnancy and birth related and in the course of the conversation I told her about my difficulity in finding a doula and she told me that she had been a doula before she became a midwife. Before I left the office she gave me a list of a couple of places where I might be able to track a doula down. I was glad for the suggestion but as I was leaving I thought "She's the one I really want as a doula!"

I thought about it for a few days and decided to just go ahead and call her at the office and ask her to be my doula. She called me back yesterday and said "I'm so glad you called! When you left the other day I was thinking 'I would love to be at that birth!'"

Hooray! I found my doula! After searching all over Minnesota I finailly found her in my own doctor's office. I'm so happy! (Can you tell?) I feel like this is such a big weight off of my shoulders. The next big step will be at 28 weeks when I go to the hospital to meet with someone to discuss my birth plan. Hope they don't mind me bringing a whole crowd of people along!