The Labor Day holiday presents a fitting day to discuss labor — the birthing kind! Here are my answers to the Labor Day meme. You can play along with Rocks In My Dryer too, but be sure to leave a comment here with your link (or just your answers if you don’t have a blog) so I know to go read your answers!

How long were your labors?

Kid #1, 22 hours.
Kid #2, 5 hours.
Kid #3, 11 hours.

See a pattern there? Nope, me neither.

How did you know you were in labor?

Kid #1, contractions that woke me up at 3 a.m. I tried to go back to sleep but (a) I had to focus on breathing through the contractions, and (b) I was too excited!
Kid #2, water breaking.
Kid #3, water breaking.

Where did you deliver?

Kid #1, hospital.
Kid #2, hospital.
Kid #3, at home, in the birth tub.

Drugs?

Kid #1, spinal/epidural combination after 16 hours of labor. At the time I was very grateful for the relief, but with my second labor I realized that when the pain got bad enough that I wanted relief, I was getting close to delivering! For me, that’s when the really good progress is being made, and if I could just keep that in mind, I could go without pain medication. With kid #1, the epidural slowed down labor for two hours, and the nurse was about to suggest pitocin when she rolled me on my side and my water broke, speeding things along.
Kid #2, a failed epidural. I asked for the epidural, had trouble sitting still for the necessary IV (duh, because I was ready to push! No one checked me for dilation!) So five minutes after I got the epidural, the OB/GYN showed up and said, “You’re ready to have a baby!” I growled back, “I know!” Three pushes and an episiotomy later, my daughter was born, and I happened to look on the floor and see the tube for the epidural, disconnected and dripping on the floor. So I’m calling that an unmedicated birth, even though I caved and asked for the drugs
Kid #3, no drugs.

C-section?

Thankfully no. With #2 and #3, I was diagnosed with placenta previa. Fortunately, both times subsequent ultrasounds revealed that the placenta had moved away from the cervix as my uterus expanded.

Who delivered?

#1 Three teaching hospital residents I had never met. They threatened to give me an episiotomy and told me to push like I was having a bowel movement, resulting in a fourth degree tear. Luckily one of them felt so bad about that that she spent an hour stitchin’ me up!
#2 A doctor who was so embarrassed about being late to the delivery that he refused to see me for my 6-week follow-up appointment. He sent in another doctor even though I had made the appointment with him. Chicken.
#3 A midwife and her assistant, both of whom I knew and trusted.

Your turn

Play along and leave a comment!

From The Breastfeeding Answer Book:

Caused by postpartum hemorrhage so severe that the blood loss irreversibly damages the pituitary gland, Sheehan’s syndrome can cause breastfeeding failure. Other symptoms include loss of pubic and underarm hair, inability to tolerate cold, low blood pressure, and atrophy of vaginal tissue, as well as subsequent infertility.

p. 569. For more see:

~ Birthsource.com
~ “Infant Insufficient Milk Syndrome Associated with Maternal Postpartum Hemorrhage” (abstract) from the Journal of Human Lactation

Please do not take this list of advantages of a home birth to mean that I think every woman ought to give birth at home. Each woman should choose as she pleases and as is appropriate for her situation, and I know there are advantages to a birth center birth or a hospital birth (room service comes to mind!) These are just some advantages of a home birth that I appreciated.

1. Never having to get in the car during labor or soon after the birth.

2. Getting to (being encouraged to!) eat and drink during labor.

3. Being able to open the windows for fresh air.

4. Resting completely undisturbed after the birth. No one woke me or the baby to check vital signs or for any other reason.

5. The baby was never separated from me (as my other children had been for a bath, a blood test, or a hearing screen).

6. No one ever tried to offer my baby a pacifier, glucose water, or formula.

7. My baby did not get dehydrated from the dry hospital air, and in fact she regained her birth weight in 3.5 days rather than the typical 10-14 days.

8. My older children got to participate in the birth and never had to be separated from me or my husband.

9. No one questioned my choices about vitamin K injections, antibiotic eye ointment, vaccinations, or co-sleeping.

10. I knew every person who interacted with me and the baby during labor, delivery, and the post-delivery period. I felt comfortable (and, well, at home!) throughout the entire experience!

For those who have had a home birth, what do you see as the advantages? Were you happy with your experience?

On Wednesday July 16 I was 38 weeks and 1 day into the pregnancy. The midwife had just finished her pre-birth home visit at 3:15 that afternoon. At 4 p.m. I was resting in bed and reading stories to my girls. Over the next hour I had some contractions, but no more and no stronger than I’d been having over the previous several days, so I didn’t pay much attention. Until I felt a little “pffzt” in my belly and I wondered whether that could possibly be my water breaking. Read more

Nicole Marie White
7 pounds, 2 ounces
19.5 inches

Born Thursday, July 17, 2008
at 2:51 a.m.

At home, in the water.

Our first nursing session lasted a blissful hour. I am happy and feeling well! More details later!

Today marks 38 weeks of pregnancy. My thoughts at this point:

1. Husband home from Ireland [check]. Birth supplies bought [check]. Birth tub set up [check]. A million nesting tasks accomplished [meals in freezer - check; air vent dusted - check]. Group B Strep test negative [check].

2. Call them Braxton-Hicks, call them pre-labor, I call them “hinting at painful.”

3. Perhaps I ought to work on positive thinking and consider them not so much painful as powerful.

4. Why, when a woman is preparing to give birth and needs all the rest she can get, does she find herself with insomnia that has her awake from 2:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m.?

5. When I finally fell back asleep, I dreamed I was Jessica Simpson (I think my brain confused her with Britney Spears and Jamie Lynn Spears) and I was in high school and I had gotten pregnant by Mario Lopez (I always did think he’s cute) and I was going to track him down and hold him responsible. Gee, do you think I have any last-minute anxiety about giving birth and caring for a new baby?

In these last few weeks of pregnancy I am busy thinking through the details of the impending birth (those for which I can plan, anyway!) As I have mentioned, I am planning on a home birth with a midwife. Should the midwife already be attending another birth, I will go to the birth center. Should I need emergency transport, I will go to the hospital within 10 minutes of my home. One detail I am still working out is where I would go in the case of non-emergency transport, in the unlikely event that I change my mind about having a non-medicated birth.

First up in my investigation of hospitals: seeing if there are any Baby-Friendly Hospitals near me. Unfortunately, while 17 of the 64 U.S. hospitals and birth centers designated as Baby-Friendly are in California, none are close enough to me to be practical.

Next I check the breastfeeding rates of local hospitals. Luckily the California WIC Association issued a California Hospital Breastfeeding Report for 2007. The report notes:

More than 86 percent of California mothers breast-feed or provide breast milk for their infants during the hospital stay. Unfortunately, only half of these babies—43 percent of all California infants—are breastfed exclusively; that is, breast milk is their only food.

Clearly it is important to choose a hospital that has both a high breastfeeding initiation (”any” breast milk) rate and a high exclusive breastfeeding rate. Oh my goodness, I just compared the two hospitals closest to me. Which would you choose, the one that has an 88.3 percent initiation rate and a pitiful 8.9 percent exclusive rate, or the 86 percent initiation rate and 49.5 percent exclusive breastfeeding rate? Or maybe it’s worth driving another 10-15 minutes for the hospital with a 90.3 initiation rate and 62 percent exclusive rate? I’m thinking that last choice is the best. It also happens to have a high level NICU and a tunnel to an excellent children’s hospital, should that be necessary.

At any rate (ha ha), please keep your fingers crossed for me for a safe and smooth home birth, with a 100% breastfeeding initiation rate and a 100% exclusive breastfeeding rate!

To all readers in the United States, Happy 4th of July (and to everyone else, I hope your day is happy too, just not for the same reasons!)

Here I am at 36 weeks and 3 days of pregnancy. The baby has dropped even more than it looked in this picture, and I feel like she could arrive at any time! So from my experience, here are five ways you can tell you are about to have that baby!

1. You have to lift your belly to shave your bikini line.

2. You are not shaving your bikini line because you have any plans to spend time at the beach, but rather because you think the midwife and her assistants might be “all up in there” sometime soon….

3. Shop clerks everywhere look at you with slight panic in their eyes, worried that they might soon be cleaning up amniotic fluid in aisle 5.

4. You start to outgrow even your third trimester maternity clothes, but can’t bear to buy anything in a larger size.

5. Your husband tempts fate in the most spectacular way by going on a business trip for a week on another continent until you are 37.5 weeks along (oh wait, that’s just me!) Wave north to Sinead at BreastfeedingMums for me, honey!

Me: Ooh, my hip hurts!
Me2: And my arm is asleep!
Me3: And I have to go the bathroom!
Me: Alright, time to get up. Roll over gently and sit up.
Me2: Wait! My tummy muscles didn’t expect that belly weight!
Me3: And my bladder! It’s squishing my bladder!
Me: Stop whining and stand up.
Me2: Oooph.
Me3: I’m up! I hope my water doesn’t break.
Me: Don’t be silly.
Me2: I’m thirsty. Get a drink of water before going back to bed.
Me3: But then I’ll have to go again soon!
Me: Doesn’t matter, you need to stay hydrated.
Me2: And besides, you’ll have to move your hips and arms again anyway.
Me3: Try resting on the other hip this time.
Me: Oooph.
Me2: I just hope I can go back to sleep.
Me3: Feel that? The baby is kicking!
Me: Good, now I know she’s okay.
Me2: Goodnight.
Me3: See you at 6 a.m.

I was tagged for a pregnancy meme by Marijke at Womb Within. She asks the following six questions:

1. How did you find out you were pregnant?
2. How did you tell your partner (if you have/had one)?
3. Did you secretly hope for a girl or a boy?
4. Did you feel ready to have a child?
5. What bit of advice did you get that you hated?
6. What bit of advice did you get that you appreciated?

1 and 2. The first time, I quietly crept out of bed early in the morning and took a home pregnancy test following months of infertility treatment. I could hardly believe my eyes when it turned up positive! I crawled back into bed and put my husband’s hand over my belly and “kicked” to tell him there soon would be a little one actually kicking in there! The second time, I was at the gynecologist’s office, and had asked that a pregnancy test be run on the off chance that my husband and I had conceived on our own. I burst into tears when the nurse told me I was pregnant (she thought I already knew!) The nurse went to get my husband in the waiting room, except he waited for me there and I waited for him inside, and all that time he thought I was going to tell him there was something terribly wrong! Finally we connected and he got the happy surprise too! This third time, it was Thanksgiving Day and I insisted that my husband go with me to the grocery store to buy a home pregnancy test. He didn’t think I was pregnant (even though we had been trying), so guess who got to have one of those “I told you so” moments?

3. I secretly hoped for a girl the first time, and got my wish! The second time I hoped for another girl, because I grew up with a younger sister and wanted that for my daughter too. Again, wish granted. The third time I knew the chances of having another girl were quite high, and while I would also have been happy to have a boy, I was pleased to learn we are indeed expecting a girl.

4. Even after all those months of trying for a much-desired baby, I still didn’t feel ready to have my first. Going into the second pregnancy with experience made me even more nervous to have a second child (How would the family dynamic change? Could I handle caring for two?) All the same questions have arisen this third time too, although I am not as concerned about going from two to three children as I was about going from one to two.

5. I must have blocked out all the advice that didn’t resonate with me. At every La Leche League meeting I attend, the leader always reminds the mothers to “take what works for you and leave the rest.” I seem to have taken that to heart!

6. The one piece of advice I really appreciated came from a magazine. It was a tip from a mother who said to make short-term goals about breastfeeding. When I experienced some early problems with engorgement, oversupply, and plugged ducts, I stuck it out until the point that I could not imagine stopping. Breastfeeding quickly became my most valuable tool for parenting an infant — the bonding, the nurturing, the comforting.

Want to play along? Answer the six questions either in the comments section of this post or in your own post!