Body Image January 31, 2010

Yes, that is my belly with my stretch marks.

Before I became pregnant my relationship with my body was okay, not great, but I wasn’t filled with self-loathing or anything. The last time I was at my ideal weight (approximately 130lbs on my 5′5″ frame) was 2004, the year I met J. Before I met him I was automobile-free. I walked, cycled, or bussed everywhere and I ate super-healthy. Then my blind date with J happened. Within a couple of months of meeting him he’d moved in and brought a car with him. Before you knew it I was eating more of the foods that he preferred and less of the ones I used to eat, and we were driving everywhere. I started to put on weight and felt bad about it.

Then we started dealing with infertility and I started putting on more weight. For me I know it was comfort eating more than medications and so I felt bad about the weight and about not being able to control my eating. I didn’t “dress to my best advantage” either meaning that I looked a little frumpy. Not badly, but enough that my sister would tell me that I dressed way too old for my age.

Then I got pregnant. I was 175lbs when we conceived. This is considered very overweight, but not obese.  I was quite concerned that I was going to use pregnancy as an excuse to keep on eating and end up putting on too much weight that I wouldn’t be able to take off. But that didn’t happen. Instead I was dealing with a decreased appetite in the first trimester. I ate enough but not too much. And I felt good about how I was eating. And I felt good about myself. Pregnancy progressed and my belly started getting bigger. I had to buy new clothes. I bought ones that were fitted but work appropriate. I liked how I looked. My sister was impressed with me. I continued to eat appropriately and healthily. Sure I had the occasional chocolate bar, but I didn’t sit down and eat an entire box of crackers or three muffins at once. Carbs are my downfall.

By the time I delivered I had put on enough but not too much weight. I was very proud of myself. And I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight of 175lbs within several weeks of delivering.

Now, 2 months post-partum, I’m still feeling good about my body. I think I may weigh about 2lbs less, but my weight isn’t concerning me as much. I continue to eat decently. I haven’t been getting much exercise, but it’s too cold to take B on hikes through snowbanks around the farm and I don’t want to drive the many kilometers into town more than once or twice a week.

But I still feel good about myself. On Friday I bought a new pair of jeans. They’re lower cut than any I’ve had before. I think I’ll need some spanx to make them look great, but I’m willing to take a few more fashion risks rather than just trying to cover everything up.

I got a lot of stretch marks during my pregnancy. I knew I was prone to them so I expected it. I also expected to hate them, but I don’t. I’m not celebrating them in some sort of reclaiming-my-body-female-empowerment type of way, they’re just something that’s there. I actually kind of think they look like flames going up my belly which I find funny.

So, to my vast surprise, pregnancy and motherhood have made me feel better about my body. It is different than it was before, and the jelly aspect to my belly fat fascinates me, but I no longer feel guilty about how I look. I may lose more weight, or I may not. Either way is okay. My body is now just what it is. And I like how I feel.

Two Months Old January 24, 2010

I’ll leave this photo up for a week or so. I know she’s wearing “boyish” clothes, but the colours look better on her than pastels. She does smile, but I don’t have any great pictures of it. I, of course, think she’s beautiful whether she’s smiling or not!

Picture Deleted

Birth Story January 7, 2010

To start, both B and I are doing great. She’s just over 6 weeks now.

On November 24th J and I headed into the city to go to the hospital. We arrived around 9:30 and headed to the Mother Baby Unit to get checked in. There were no beds available when we arrived so we were told to go wait in the lounge/common area. We sat there for a couple of hours. J fidgeted and I read. I’d requested a single room but knew ahead of time that I’d only get one if there was one available. They didn’t have any beds available when we arrived. We were both concerned that I was going to be bumped due to lack of beds, but eventually they came and put in my IV while I was still in the lounge. Then they had me change in one of the shower rooms off the hallway and then I went back to sit in the lounge. Eventually a bed opened up in a 3-bed room. They shaved me up and took me off to Labour and Delivery. J was sent to get dressed and I met with with anaesthesiologist. He told me that normally they give a spinal block for a c-section, and that’s what he was planning on doing, but that due to the very high risk of complications, if the surgery needed more time to deal with bleeding, etc., that it would start to wear off and I would require a general. Then we found out that the OB doing the surgery was running a few minutes behind so I had time to have an epidural instead, which would allow more anaesthesia to be administered as necessary. I was very worried about having a needle stuck in my spine, but it was no problem whatsoever. The anaesthesiologist told me that there was a very good chance I would need a blood transfusion so he ordered the blood to be brought up and left in a cooler in the OR. The OB arrived and J was ushered in.

They started cutting.  I was feeling detached. That’s normal for me. I just wasn’t fully there even though I wasn’t sedated. I informed the anaesthesiologist that the smell of my flesh being cauterized wasn’t as bad as the smell of cauterizing goat horns (I’d been disbudding our goat kids two days prior). He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. I’m not entirely sure why I said it. I was just kind of out of it.

The OB got B out at 12:45pm and she was whisked over to the table to be examined. J was teary. I was still just feeling a bit stunned by everything. They brought her over to me and I looked at her but couldn’t kiss her as she wasn’t in the right position. She headed off to the nursery and J went with her.

I was put back together and didn’t have any excess bleeding. My uterus did decide that it didn’t want to start contracting down though and I could hear that the OB was concerned about that. Some medication was given to me through my IV to deal with that. Eventually it did start and they stitched me up. They gave me more medication to keep my uterus contracting. It was tablets given rectally. I was happy I still couldn’t feel anything.

The OB then told me that he’d been extremely worried about my surgery and had been up at 5am thinking about it. He and the anaesthesiologist had a meeting about me at 7am to discuss the situation. They had to cut through the placenta to get B out. And in the end the OB had been so careful that I actually bled less than an average c-section.

I was taken to recovery and J brought B to me. I held her, but didn’t have any overwhelming feeling of amazement and love. It was mostly just “Holy crap that’s a baby. And she’s mine. Huh”. And then I started shaking uncontrollably. The nurse keeping an eye on me said it was just due to all the emotions happening. I tried breastfeeding, but the shaking made it a bit difficult, not surprisingly.

I was moved back to the Mother Baby Unit where a single room had become available. I eventually stopped shaking and phoned a few people to let them know B had arrived and to tell them her name. I was all hopped up on morphine while doing so and was apparently kind of goofy.

J was able to stay in the hospital overnight with me. He took care of all of the diaper changes for the first 3 days. The first night I was there I spiked a fever and had the nurses all concerned. Finally one of them made some off-hand comment wondering if I’d been given Cytotech in the OR. I asked how it was given and she said that it went in your bottom. I told her that yup, I’d had that. She then told me it could also cause really bad shaking and that it would have been nice if someone had mentioned to her that I’d been given it (she meant the OR nurses, not me).

I was in the hospital for 4 nights. J stayed with me for the first two and then spent the nights at home so my mom didn’t have to do chores. Those 2 nights alone in the hospital weren’t pleasant. The hormones had me all messed up and, although I knew it wasn’t really true, I was convinced that I was going to be stuck in this tiny little room forever having to care for a baby that I knew nothing about. I wanted everything to go back to the week before when I’d still been pregnant and had a life. It’s not that I didn’t want B in those moments, I just felt trapped. Fortunately I only felt like that those two nights. The days were fine and those feelings never came back.

B was born on Tuesday and we were hoping to go home on Friday, but because of her >10% weightloss and her jaundice we had to stay another night. I suspect that the disappointment of not being able to go home probably helped fuel my crazy emotions that night too.

So. My birth experience was very clinical. Not so much with the amazement and wonder that I think are supposed to be part of it. The amazement and wonder have grown steadily ever since B arrived though. She’s, well, amazing and wonderful and continues to become more so every day. Part of me thinks I should feel guilty for not feeling overwhelming love the moment I laid eyes on her.  But I don’t feel guilty. I did love her from the moment she came into existance, I just didn’t feel gushes of it immediately. And I think that’s actually normal for me. And gushiness isn’t a required part of love. Right now I think I may be happier than I’ve ever been.

I’ll try to update more sometime soon and I’ll try to get some photos up on my password protected photoblog.

Baby November 30, 2009

All went well and B.lythe G.ladys arrived on Nov. 24th at approximately 12:45pm, weighing in at 7lbs 6oz, a full pound less than the ultrasound estimate a week before. There’s not too much exciting to the birth story given that it was a planned c/s, but I will write about it soon.

Things are going okay right now. As expected I’m happy, tired, hormonal, etc. We’re having breastfeeding issues that are leading to a lot of frustration. I had colostrum already in production when she was born, and a bit of milk came in after a few days, but yesterday (5 days after the birth) is when I finally got engorged. B was a good nurser from the start, but she lost more than 10% of her birth weight in the 3 days after she was born so we had to stay in the hospital an extra day and supplement formula through finger feeding. That did bring her weight up enough to release us on Saturday and because she was taking less formula each time the nurses said she probably wouldn’t need any once we were home.

Adding to it is a mild case of jaundice. Her biliruben levels are well below the trigger for phototherapy, but we did have to get another (3rd) blood test done yesterday. I had her weighed at that point and she’d lost weight again over the last 24 hours so I started supplementing through fingerfeeding at home.

Between the time it took for my milk to come in and the lethargy that the jaundice causes, B hasn’t had a lot of interest in eating. I’ve been waking her up every 3-4 hours to try it, but she is amazingly good at sealing her lips shut and refusing food.

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I wrote most of this post first thing this morning. Since then B has had an awesome morning and spent much of the past three hours awake and eating. Prior to today she’s had maybe a total of 20 minutes of alert time a day, not including the times she actually did nurse.

Tomorrow November 23, 2009

Tomorrow my daughter arrives. It’s a rather surreal feeling. I’m not exactly excited. I’m kind of nervous, but not too much. It’s just a bit difficult to grasp the whole “going to have my belly sliced open and the creature who has been squirming inside me removed” thing. And that she’ll be a person. My baby.

I won’t be posting tomorrow. If we get a private room then J will be staying overnight with me so I may get him to post a quick update on Wednesday. Or possibly not. The normal stay after a c/s is 3-5 days, but some women manage to talk themselves out of there after 2 days. I’m hoping that the baby and I are well enough to get sprung early, but it may still be Sunday or Monday before you hear from me again.

Births (not mine) November 17, 2009

Our goats finally kidded on Nov 7th & 8th. The breeder we got them from pasture breeds (leaves the does out in the field with the buck) so she wasn’t able to tell us when they were due, and because we’re new to this we weren’t able to tell ourselves. So on Nov 7th I walked into the barn to do evening chores and there was a set of very fresh twin kids looking wet and confused in the middle of the barn. Their poor mother was also confused (first time mom). I got them shut into a stall together away from the other goats and they all calmed down and the kids started nursing.

Then the next morning J and I were out doing chores and we could tell that there was something up with our other bred doe. She was either in labour or really, really sick. We were sure it was labour. I checked on her frequently and sat with her for several hours. I felt so bad for her, she’d lean her head against the wall and moan, or pace and paw the ground and it was so obvious that she was uncomfortable. I went inside for a break for half an hour or so, and when I went back out she had two babies with her. I was sad I’d missed the births. Over the two way radio I told J and my mom that the babies had been born so they came out to see. As we were standing there watching, the doe started pawing the ground again and out came a third baby!

 

This is a pic of the twins:

 

The twins

 

 

And of one of the twins (And me with my double chin and belly. Just look at the goat, okay?):

 

Me drying off the third triplet because it was chilly out. I did let the doe clean the baby off first and gave it back right after I’d dried it:

 

Triplet 3

 

 

And the doe with all three babies:

 

So there is a whole lotta cute going on in our barn right now. The babies are hopping all over the place. It’s impossible to be grumpy while watching a goat kid bounce around. The twins are both boys, and the triplets are 2 girls and one boy. Because I’m building up a dairy herd I’m going to keep the girls, but will have to sell the boys. I’ll neuter them and I’m hoping to find them homes as pets, but we’ll see how it works out.

Right now I’m still letting the kids have full access to the does. Ideally I’d start separating them at night and milking the does in the morning when the kids are two weeks old, but, given that that will be 2-3 days before my c-section, we’ll have to wait until they’re three weeks old. And J will have to be doing the milking for the first few weeks.

As for me, I’m doing fine still. No bleeding or other concerns. My c-section is a week from today. And no, I don’t seem to be either nervous or excited. I’m not dreading it by any means, it’s just that it all still seems a little unreal. My mom is out and we have some more cleaning to get done, but I don’t think we have much more “stuff” to get. The cloth diapers have arrived and are washed. My mom is repainting the cradle. There’s just not a whole lot to say about it all at the moment. I’m sure my emotions will start jumping around soon, but they haven’t done so yet.

Last Day of Work October 29, 2009

Today was my last day of work. All the paperwork I’ve done says that I’ll be off for a year, but in reality I have no intentions of going back, I just want to leave my options open at the moment.

I don’t really enjoy the work there, and management has issues. I’ve been wanting to leave for a long time. In fact J and I decided to start trying to get pregnant 8 months or so earlier than we’d originally planned on because we thought that, seeing as I didn’t enjoy what I did, we might as well get pregnant sooner. So it’s been about 3.5 years since I started thinking that my time there might be done soon. The length of time it took also added to my resentment of my job.

But now that it’s over I feel weird. Kind of sad, kind of happy, kind of lost. I enjoyed my co-workers, and there were certain aspects of the work itself that I enjoyed. I did not like the bureaucracy and paperwork, but I did like helping municipalities figure out their zoning bylaws.

It was a career that I went to university for and now I have no idea if I’m ever going to do work related to my degree again.

I am still working towards a goat dairy so I won’t be unemployed, but I may have just exited a particular period of my life, the part where I had a secure job with decent pay and was considered to be a “professional”.

I’m happy that I’m moving on to new things, but for now, well, I just feel a little weird.

Big Baby, and Things People Say October 28, 2009

We had an OB appointment and ultrasound today. The OB is still amazed that I haven’t had any bleeding. I should have a phone call from the nurse tomorrow with the appointment for my c-section, assuming I continue with no bleeding. The ultrasound showed that the placenta had definitely not moved at all, and estimated the baby to be 6lbs 6oz. I’ll be 34 weeks on Friday. If I were to have gone to term I think she would probably be one freakin’ big baby. Of course weights estimated by ultrasound aren’t necessarily accurate. And it’s kind of irrelevent as I’ll be having c-section no matter what, so they can’t try to talk me into having one due to size.

Although we aren’t really sharing our baby’s name with other people, I will admit to having mentioned it to a couple of people who aren’t close, like a colleague who works in a remote office, just because I’m curious about what other people think. The colleague in the remote office loved it. Today I mentioned it to someone who is expecting a boy about a month after me who works in a different department. I got the “Oh…that’s…interesting” response. I wasn’t offended by it and then I was even less offended when she told me what two names they were going to choose from for their baby are because they are very trendy ones. I’m not surprised she didn’t like my rather old-fashioned choice.

J and I received an e-card recently from his mom. He hasn’t spoken to her since last December. He did get cc’d into the middle of an email discussion in March that she and J’s sister were having about her (J’s mom) moving to the D.ominican Republic. After putting up with all her addiction crap for years he decided he just didn’t want to deal with her anymore if she wasn’t even going to tell him she was planning on moving out of the country, so he just hasn’t contacted her. We have heard through other family members that she has flat-out said that she wants nothing to do with J, myself, or our baby. We don’t really care. Then we got the e-card. It said: “Congrats on the baby girl on the way. I imagine she’ll have great hair. Love you and miss you”. Now there is nothing remotely offensive about the card, it’s just a weird way to try to get back in contact with us. We haven’t responded. J is thinking he’ll tell her of the birth of our daughter by cc’ing her in on an email that he sends to his sister.

We visted J’s grandparents about a month ago. They wanted to know the sex of the baby. We told them. His grandmother, who is known to have a preference for boys, tried to console me with “It’s okay, girls can work just as hard on the farm as boys”. Once again, I wasn’t offended, I just thought it was funny. Because, you know, that’s all we wanted a baby for. Free farm labour.

I’ve been very lucky so far with next to no unwanted advice, and no one has tried to touch my belly. These few comments have just been kind of funny. Although I talk to someone recently who was horrified that I’m having a planned c-section and not even trying labour. She just couldn’t seem to grasp the concept that if I were to try it, it could have catastrophic results for the baby and I. Rather than being offended by her I just chose to believe she’s dumb.

Renos and Baby Stuff October 25, 2009

The renos in our house are still ongoing. J hit a point though where he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to get everything done that needed to be done before winter/the baby arrives, so we flew my dad out for a week to help. My dad used to be a house framer/contractor, and, now that he’s older, mostly just does reno work for people. He’s self-employed and had some time between jobs so he was happy to come out here to help.

He did lots of work on our bathroom/laundry room. He almost totally gutted it. The toilet is still in place, as is the bathtub (although we can’t use it as a stand-up shower at the moment), and the laundry sink is still in place, but the bathroom sink is gone. Other than that everything else was taken down. The plaster & lathe walls were demolished, the ceiling was pulled down, the window was taken out. He insulated, put in a door on the exterior wall (in the future we intend to build a garage onto that side of the house and turn the bathroom into a mudroom and move the bathroom elsewhere) and redid the ceiling.

He left yesterday and it’s not all back together yet, but J should be able to finish the rest. In the meantime it’s mostly useable. It’s too dusty and dirty in there to want to scrub the tub every time we want to bathe, so we have to kneel in the tub and use the hand-held shower head. I’m finding this a bit awkward with the belly so J has to help me. Not a big deal though. J put up the moisture board/drywall yesterday and is hoping to start tiling today so we should be able to use the tub as a real shower by next weekend. The rest of the bathroom will likely be finished the week or so after that, other than painting.

J and my dad also got a bit of work done on the outside of the house too. They pulled off old siding and put up rigid insulation. J will cover it in plastic house wrap over the next week and we’ll leave it like that for the winter and put up new siding next year.

We’ll still have  a lot of interior painting in the house to do over the winter, but fortunately the baby doesn’t really care what the place looks like. It just needs to be warm and clean.

The geothermal heating system is working. But sadly, no, we probably won’t be able to have an outdoor hotspring tub. It’s a closed loop system, meaning that there are twelve  loops of plastic tubing buried vertically 120 feet deep in our yard with water/antifreeze in them. The fluid picks up heat from the earth, takes it back to the mechanical part of the unit which concentrates the heat by removing the cold, kind of like a reverse air conditioner, then the fluid takes the cold back to the earth and leaves it there and warms back up again. The mechanical part of the unit transfers heat to the tubing that runs through the floors in our house, and everything gets warmed from the floors up. Although the system was expensive to install, for every unit of energy that we use to run it, we get three units of energy (heat) out, so it’s really efficient. We were previously relying on electric heat, so the system should completely pay for itself within 8-10 years at which point our heat will be more or less free. Plus I love radiant floor heating.

The baby and I are still doing fine. My ligaments are starting to loosen up causing some aching and discomfort in my pelvis and hips, but nothing really bad. If it’s the end of the day sometimes J has to help me with my shoes, because I can’t raise my leg at the hip in that particular direction, but I’m still able to walk fine.

Our cloth diapers have been ordered, but haven’t arrived yet. I talked to three different people I know who have cloth-diapered and got three different opinions. One friend only used Bum.Genius AIO (all-in-ones). One only used fitted cloth with a diaper cover. And the other one used about 5 different kinds. The one who tried various ones had opinions and recommendations for each of them so I decided to stick with her advice.

We’re going to use both prefolds, and AIO. The prefolds require a cover, but are quite versatile. The small size can be used to stuff larger ones for more absorbancy when the baby gets bigger. They also dry a lot faster than the AIO. I like this because, although we’ll be using the dryer through the winter, I would prefer to line dry them once spring comes. I am getting some Bum.Genius 3.0 AIO for days when we’re going out and I don’t want to have to deal with a prefold and a cover. I do think I’ll try some Hemp AIO when they’re available as I’ve heard that they’re softer and more absorbent. One of our friends sells cloth diapers online and is giving us a discount so we’re ordering through her. Her Hemp diapers haven’t arrived yet.

[side note: I don't know exactly what J is doing in the bathroom right now, probably more drywall, but it isn't going well and much cursing is occuring.]

We also picked up a baby monitor of sorts yesterday. Because there will be times that I’ll be in the barn or out in the garden while the baby is napping we needed a really long range one. The really long range monitors were expensive (>$300) and didn’t have good reviews. So I checked out 2-way radios. They have a monitor function, a range of at least several miles (although I will never be that far away), and are much more reasonable (<$80). I was so impressed with myself for coming up with that idea.

I’m 33 weeks now, and will be starting weekly OB appointments and ultrasounds as of this Wednesday, instead of every two weeks as it has been for the past couple of months. I’m still not bleeding and seem to be fine. The baby squirms a lot which I assume means she’s fine.

We went on a hospital tour a few weeks ago. We got a private tour because I asked if I could skip the whole labour & delivery portion of it. One of the things I was concerned about with a c-section was the amount of time I would be separated from the baby. Friends of mine (in different cities) weren’t able to be with their babies until they were out of recovery. I found out that at the hospital I will be delivery in, the baby will be taken to the nursery (and J will go with her) while I’m being stitched up, but the moment I get to the recovery room she will be brought to me. I don’t have to wait until I’m back in the mother/baby unit. The woman giving the tour told us to request a private room if we could get it, and to have ourselves checked out as soon as we were ready. The hospital is currently doing renos (eventally all rooms in the mother/baby unit will be private) and she said that it’s better to be at home. Plus there’s the whole aspect of hospitals being for sick people thing.

So. Renos are coming along, as is the pregnancy. I’m done work as of this Thursday (I will be so happy to get out of that place), although I’ll still have to go into the city with J for a few days because I can’t be left alone at the farm. My mom is arriving on Nov 4th so we’ll be able to hang out at home and hopefully get some cleaning and organizing done before baby’s arrival.

Odds and Ends October 9, 2009

Not too much new or exciting has happened in the past two weeks. We went on our 4 day holiday to a Provincial Park. It wasn’t as nice as other parks I’ve been to, and the lake was absolutely stanky. Yes, it was so far beyond stinky that it was stanky. But we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. We went for walks, watched TV, ate, and slept, exactly as planned. There are a few pictures on my photoblog, but nothing too exciting.

I had another OB appointment 9 days ago. Not much to report from it. The Dr seemed very surprised that I’m not bleeding yet and also told me that most doctors would have me on bedrest at this point, but he preferred to play it by ear. Although he didn’t actually say it, it sounded as though he feels that bedrest would manage the bleeding once it starts, but won’t prevent it from occurring. We had another ultrasound and the baby was measuring 1 week ahead instead of two weeks ahead like she had been at the previous appointment. The tech said that the measurements aren’t exactly precise and that the discrepancy doesn’t mean much.

Our geothermal heating is still in the process of being installed. We’ve been tearing out the baseboard heaters as we renovate. This morning when we woke up it was 10C (50F) in the house. It’s warmed up a bit in here with the help of some space heaters but not much. The geothermal installation is supposed to be complete tomorrow. Frickin’ well better be.

I haven’t really done much baby shopping. I bought a big garbage bag of used baby clothes for $50 that will cover a lot of what I need in the beginning. I have the cradle my dad made and bought a used playyard (playpen, whatever) for the baby to sleep in while she’s small. We’ve been given a crib, another playyard (a much more basic one) that I’ll keep in the barn so I can haul the baby out with me when I’m doing chores, and a travel system. We aren’t going to use the travel system though, as it’s over 6 years old and has “expired” as much as car seats can expire. There’s no problem with the stroller though. I have picked up some odds and ends like face cloths and towels.

So I still need to buy a car seat and order the diapers we’re going to use. I’m going with cloth. Because I want to.

We aren’t setting up the baby’s room until next spring. It needs to have the drywall torn out and new insulation and drywall put in. Until then she’ll sleep in our room or the living room, whichever is more convenient. Our room, the living room, the bathroom and the kitchen are all on the main floor. The baby’s room will be upstairs, so not only does it need to be renovated, but I have no interest in running upstairs to get her for a feed in the middle of the night, bring her back down to the bathroom for a diaper change, and haul her back up. Sometimes I think that I’m supposed to be more gung-ho about preparing for her arrival, but meh, I kind of assume we’ll just figure things out as we go. I’m more concerned about getting things cleaned up from our renos and just having the house generally organized, which it really, really is not right now. I will have a pack of newborn disposable diapers here, as well as a couple of bottles and some formula even though I intend to use cloth and to breastfeed.

6 weeks left until Nov. 20th, which is the latest the OB will let me go. And he expects her to arrive sooner. It’s kind of hard to grasp the concept of how much our lives are about to change.