Christina at Solomother has tagged me in the Ten Things That Happened to Me meme. Babylune is about recovering from child birth and I think I should stay on topic at least sometimes, so here are ten things that happened to me when I was trying to get pregnant, pregnant, giving birth or recovering from the experience.

1. My midwife canceled my home birth.

When I was 37 weeks pregnant with my oldest, I had to stop working. Pregnant women are supposed to stop working 6 weeks before their due dates in Germany for insurance purposes, but I was, as I am now, a freelancer with no rights and no maternity income so I continued to work until I couldn’t hide the fact that I was definitely due any moment. The moment I stopped working, problems started. I was in a foreign country without friends or family (except a husband) and easily overcome with boredom and loneliness. I wanted to have my baby with me. Since I was officially full term and I knew the baby was at least 8 lbs, I decided to induce labor myself with mineral oil. It didn’t work and, when I told my midwife, she was really angry because I hadn’t consulted her. At the time, I hadn’t seen the need. I come from the feminist school of thought, my body, my decision. My midwife, on the other hand, was worried that I wouldn’t listen to her if our planned home birth needed to be moved to a hospital and refused to attend.

” You’re so militant about how birth should be,” she said.

At the time, I was not yet a mother. I didn’t understand that becoming a mother involved giving up control and letting the child take its place as the center of my universe. My psychological preparation for motherhood was far behind my physical preparation. I think that’s why my son was born 8 days overdue and weighed 4500 grams, just a touch under 10 pounds. That said, it was a fantastic natural birth attended by a midwife with my husband and mother actively assisting. We all went home 4 hours later.

2. I had a successful mineral oil induction.

When my daughter was born, I was already a mother. No one saw any reason for my pregnancy to continue any longer than necessary or for me to risk delivering a child even larger than my first. The same midwife who assisted during my first birth gave me the instructions for induction and stayed at our house the night before our second child was born. The birth was fast and very, very intense, but our girl was calm and happy to be out of me. It still took some time for my pregnancy induced stomach acid to calm down.

3. I prepared for a c-section that never happened.

For most of my pregnancy I had a low-lying placenta. It was covering the cervix and blocking the exit route. After 24 weeks, most low-lying placentas aren’t dragged upward and out of the way of the cervix as the womb stretches and grows. This is the point in pregnancy when placenta praevia is usually diagnosed and a c-section is scheduled for the 38th week of pregnancy. Long before the 24th week, I was put on a low-activity regime. I couldn’t stand or walk for more than 15 minutes at a time. I continued to teach, but I had to actually sit at my desk which made my lessons less interesting for everyone. My 3 year-old was wild with boredom. I lost all my muscle tone and even my digestive system sagged.

And then, at about 34 weeks, the growing baby had a growth spurt, my womb expanded rapidly and the placenta was dragged with it up and out of the way. Statistically, it isn’t supposed to happen, but it did and I didn’t need to have a c-section after all. Still, I gathered all the information I could about how to recover from one.

4. My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage.

This is my pregnancy book of choice. I like it so much, I’ve used it during each pregnancy:

Still, the book failed me once. My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage at about 7 weeks. The book does deal with miscarriage, but I was desperate for more answers than it could give me before it went on to explain the development of healthy pregnancies while mine, then, had ended.

When I did have a healthy pregnancy, it was a helpful resource, but between its pages I kept (and still keep) a print from my first pregnancy. A little black& white memento of a heart beat I once saw on a screen, I little flash of hope I absorbed completely. I would like to think it’s the hope that stays with me when I think of that image, but honestly, it is a sense of fragility that remains.

Recently, I was trying to think of ways to comfort a friend who recently lost her first pregnancy. It is very common and I constructed my own beliefs to get through my own sense of loss. What I believe, with no evidence that this is true, is that becoming a mother is a long process and, maybe, sometimes, your body needs a warm up to prepare itself for the trials of pregnancy. Maybe, some of our minds and bodies need a taste of exhaustion, morning sickness, vulnerability and the education of a miscarriage to adapt to it before we can go the distance.

5. My third pregnancy also ended in miscarriage.

I had a 15 month-old child who was still breastfeeding, my work life was in a state of flux, my marriage was in the middle of an unhappy time, the pregnancy was unplanned and three of us were already squeezed into a one-bedroom apartment with a year left on its lease. For a week, I worried about how we would manage and, to be honest, I was ashamed that I had let this happen to our family. I told one friend and our midwife about the pregnancy. And then, I started bleeding. I knew what was happening and asked the little flash of hope to come back later, when things were settled. I believe that is what happened to me (see point 2 for fourth pregnancy reference).

6. I lost my libido and got my groove back.

And, I am sure I have said enough about that topic.

7. Due to poor parenting decisions, I haven’t slept through the night in more than five years.

8. I became a hypocrite.

Instead of doing what would have been best for my recovery from childbirth, I blogged.

9. I’ve always been a big reader, but motherhood made reading a necessity. I need at least a chapter a night before bed to disassociate from the events of the day and relax. This wasn’t true for the first three months after each of the kids were born, but it is now.

10. I am not the most important person in my own life.

I believe in making time to take care of myself to take care of my health, my character, and my finances, but the children always, always, always come first.

As usual, I won’t tag anyone, but I will read and post links to anyone who does the “ten things that happened to me” meme as a result of reading mine.

Post from: Babylune

In the time I have been writing this site, I have never been brave enough to talk about other kinds of loss. Deaths that are just unfair. And yet, when one writes about childbirth, the fear is always there.

One of the reasons I have never written about the death of a baby, or even miscarriage, is because I don’t want dark thoughts to affect those who are already prone to PPD to be tempted to go further into their moods. There is also part of me that doesn’t want to contemplate that terrible idea of losing a child.    

At the same time, I know there are women who have left the birthing bed with empty wombs and empty arms. I want you to know that I care about what happened to you. I want you to know that there are people who understand what you are experiencing at this very moment.  

There is an organization called The Compassionate Friends that provides support to parents, grandparents and siblings who have recently lost a child of any age. They aren’t affiliated with any religious groups and the care is handled by people who have survived the same ordeal.

Salon, one of the first internet magazines, has run a series of personal essays on this topic that are moving on every level that can help those of us who want to comfort the grieving.

The physical recovery from a still birth can be much more complicated. Grief is the greatest sleep disturber, milk flows with tears and the flow of blood must still be stemmed.

I don’t know how to tell you to take a practical approach to taking care of your own body while your emotional energy is spent on grief, but that is exactly what you have to do.

Put cabbage leaves in your bra to help stop the milk, use the cheapest, softest pads you can find, sleep whenever you can, count each glass of water you drink until you reach 8 or 10 each day, eat the food people bring you and take your vitamins. It doesn’t matter if you don’t see the point, just do it.

Hopefully a family member or a friend will step in to make sure you do the above and walk aroundtheblock with you as soon as you can. Let them guide you. You may not want to return to normalacy, not ever, but normal life will intrude and like it or not, your body will have to deal with it.

In the meantime, let people know what you have experienced. Let them be gentle with you. Let them treat you with special consideration. Then, when you are ready for them to stop being careful, you can tell them that too.

As I write this, I am in Bulgaria where obituaries and memorial notices are posted on sign posts, stapled to gates and taped to front doors. My Anglo-Saxon background would say that this is dwelling on tragedy. It is a sign of the absense of a “stiff upper lip.”

Instead, I appeciate how these very public expressions help people to care for each other. There is really no such thing as a private tragedy.  You are part of a community. Your grief is not yours alone. It belongs to everyone who knows you and loves you.  

Post from: Babylune