Things have been pretty crazy over here with maintaining the ICAN Blog, a household, my sanity, and day to day life.  Just kidding about the sanity thing.  Mostly.  

Lately, I’ve been really struggling with baby fever.  I’ve been so sad that E weaned right around a year, and I really, really am craving a sweet little nursling to nuzzle and nurse.  Plus, I love babies.  I’ve put myself in time out, taken myself out, put myself back over and over again, but at this point, I think I’m fighting a losing battle, so I’m really going to start focusing on getting back in to good shape for pregnancy over the next few months.  Forget that little bit you just read about me not exercising.  

While I really would love and welcome another baby, I have to admit a huge part of me is really struggling with the thought of planning and hoping for another vaginal birth.  So much of this ride is emotional for me, and I have a hard time letting go of the past and sometimes become overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to think about and plan for another birth.  Right now when I think about another baby, I kind of skip over the whole birth part and just imagine a sweet and snuggly little newborn in my arms.  At some point, I have to just let it all go and accept that what will be will be and that I ultimately don’t really have a lot of control over the final outcome.  Easier typed than done.  But that’s where I am–I know where I need to be, and I’m working on getting there.

On the doula front, I just ordered my certification packet, so I am going to be getting to work on completing that over the next few months.  I have read a few of the books required and I have a breastfeeding class scheduled in March, and now I’m just on the hunt for some births to attend to fulfill the birth attendance requirement.  It’s a shame I hadn’t ordered it before those two births I went to last month, but hopefully it won’t be too hard to get the 3 I need. 

Something interesting that has happened since I’ve been cleansing (oh and taking chaste tree supplements to regulate my cycle…did I mention those?  No?  Ok, just did) is that my chart is now showing a CD10 ovulation.  I don’t really believe that, but my temps have been really high–and yay for me diligently temping this cycle–the past few days.  E isn’t really nursing that much anymore, so I know my body is just regulating itself again, and add to that the cleanse and the chaste tree and my womb is probably all in a tizzy.  I’ve started peeing on OPKs and I think I’m actually really going to ovulate here in a couple days, but I guess we’ll see.

And now I leave you with this beautiful HBAC video I discovered this week.  So powerful, lovely, inspiring and amazing.  Enjoy!

The first birth was what I’d imagine every laboring woman would want.  Very calm, relaxed, mom didn’t even realize she was in labor at 8cm, pushed her baby out in about an hour after we got there.  I watched her birth, cried as she pushed her baby out and hoped so desperately that my next labor would be like that.  This was the very first live vaginal birth I’d ever witnessed and the experience was indescribable.

We headed straight over to another birth after this one and it reminded me a lot of E’s.  Mama labored long and hard, so beautiful as she worked through her contractions with the support of her wonderful husband.  I watched her work so hard and I was moved by the way she worked with grace to bring her baby in to this world.  It was intense, powerful, emotional, strong, hard work, and I watched that mama do it all by herself.  I watched her work through all those hard contractions and through the incredible intensity of her labor with a presence of mind and body that made me stand in awe of her strength, courage and ability to birth her baby all by herself. And I cried again as she delivered her baby all on her own.

I joked with my midwives that I wish I could have caught, but that I probably would have pulled these women’s babies to my chest crying, “I DID IT! I FINALLY DID IT!!!!” But they did it.  And watching them do it made me believe, a little bit more, that maybe I can do it too.  I was honored beyond words to witness the strength of a woman (twice) birthing her babies, working with her body to bring her baby in to this world.  Having had two cesareans, I often question my body’s ability to do what these women did, but watching them do it helped restore a little bit of the faith I’ve lost along the way.

I’m so thankful these women allowed me in to their homes and in to their birthing space to bear witness to the incredible power and strength we all possess as women.  Witnessing these births has helped heal a lot of wounds in my own heart, and for that, I can’t thank these mothers enough.

I have a dear friend who just had an awesome VBAC earlier this week.  Towards the end of her pregnancy, her care providers had mentioned something about her baby’s size and how it was “good” because it wasn’t too big.  She has a friend also going for a VBAC with the same practice in a couple months who was told she was a good candidate because her babies are small at term.  Add to this being advised to go straight to the hospital when your water breaks and other policies which I found, at the very least, questionable and I started to wonder  how different people define a VBAC friendly provider, and whether she will recommend their practice as VBAC friendly.

It’s been the case in many forums (fora?) I frequent that a VBAC hopeful mom asks for tips on finding a supportive care provider and is given a name–come to find out that most of the women who have had successful VBACs with this provider have gone before their due dates, had smaller babies (“confirmed” through late term size ultrasounds), had short labors that followed The Friedman Curve (or were too fast to be interfered with), were primary VBACs or had a successful VBAC under their belts, etc.  And then, a few months later, the mom who posted the original question comes back approaching her due date and having a RCS threatened if she doesn’t go in to labor before, or having her provider mention the size of the baby, or being told she has to do XYZ or she won’t be “allowed” to VBAC, and I get really pissed off.  But maybe that’s just because I have a different idea in my head of what it means to be VBAC friendly.

Maybe it’s because if I had gotten my VBAC with E, it wouldn’t have been anything like Cinderella’s story.  It would have been her ugly stepsister’s and I know, without a doubt, that had I been with almost anyone other than my midwives, I would have been sectioned either before I even went in to labor or much, much earlier than I was when we transported, given the length of my labor.  Or maybe it’s because I get sick to damn death of women having the wool pulled over their eyes and frantically searching for someone at the end of their pregnancies who will “let” them even try to do what they have determined is in the best interest of themselves and their baby.

Call me perverse, but I really want to start asking people who recommend these so called VBAC friendly providers how many fat VBACs they’ve done.  Or how many labors that went beyond 12, 18, 24 hours, as long as baby and mom were doing well?  Or if some issue with mom came up during her pregnancy–maybe rising blood pressures noted, or a breech baby well before her due date–how was it handled?  Was a cesarean immediately brought up, or were alternative options discussed?

I think we all grew out of fairy tales a long time ago, and in the land of obstetrics, there are very, very few Prince (or Princess) Charmings.  It’s about time we quit selling women this idea that just because your thin, blond, perfect princess friend got her VBAC with Dr. So and So that the rest of us can too.

And damn, if I’m not going to listen to this song on repeat right now….

As a dear friend put it to me so succinctly, “Your body is whacked out.”

And now is when I remind myself that I don’t want to be pregnant again just yet–I’m a good girl and don’t jump J’s bones because my midwives read this Blog and I don’t want to spend 10 months in time out.  No matter how cool getting pregnant on E’s birthday would be.

Happy birthday to my darling, sweet, sensitive, funny, charming little baby E!  It’s been a very emotional month for me, much more so than I anticipated, but the main emotions I have today are happiness and contentment.I’m spending the day reflecting on his birth (as I did yesterday…gosh, I didn’t realize how looooong it felt when you weren’t the one in labor.  Shout out to my MWs for not making it seem like a hassle for them!) and on how I was changed for the better for it.

And, y’all know I don’t like to do too much with the woo, but…..I started my period today.  I couldn’t make this stuff up if I wanted to.  It was going on cycle day 39, I was finally getting faint shadows on the OPKs I randomly test with since I was not a good temper this cycle, and BAM! There’s my period.  It only would have been better if this had been my first postpartum cycle, but I’ll take it.  Ah, the cycle (*giggle* *snort*) of life.

That’s me on the front page  Click on the video to get to mine and see all of the other women’s stories.  BEST DAY EVER!!!!!!

***I wanted to make this blog post funny, clever and creative, but I am just so darn excited that I had to just get it out here.***

You’ll notice there is room in the middle for either a third ribbon or symbolic imagery of a baby crowning.  Hopefully it’s the latter.

Dear K and B,

I’m not sure there are any words I can give you to express the absolute thankfulness I have in my heart to have been blessed with you, but I’m going to try to give you back some of what you’ve given me.  I’ve always had a way with words, but here in this moment, I’m not sure I will be able to adequately express myself, probably because what you have given me is so much bigger than anything I could have ever imagined.  I’m going to do my damndest though.

I remember wondering if it was fate that I got my positive pregnancy test the day before we met, and sitting here now, I can only believe that it was.  K, I remember in one of the very first emails you sent me, never having met me and before I was even pregnant, you told me that you believed in my body and in my birth.  I have gone back and reread that email several times and it’s still so unfathomable to me to have had a champion on my side.  Before I believed in myself, you believed in me.  Thank you for that.  I interviewed other midwives and saw other OBs before I even got that email, and you were the first one–the only one–to tell me you had faith in me.  That means more than you’ll probably ever know.  More than I even wanted my VBAC, I just wanted someone to believe in me and you absolutely did.  I never had a doubt in my mind that you knew I could do it, and I now owe you a debt that I can never repay.

B, I want to thank you for staying up with me for hours (and hours and hours) comforting me, assuring me, holding me, walking me through this process.  It was strange, uncomfortable and frightening to do something I’d been told I could never do.  You were the beacon for me in an unfamiliar place–a ray of light I could focus on when I was in the hardest part of my labor and I knew without a doubt that I could not go on.  You sustained me.

I want to thank you for not forgetting J throughout the whole thing.  I know a huge part of his willingness to try again is based on the trust you forged with him when I panicked.  He could easily have been forgotten and lost in the fray, but you made sure that his feelings were honored and that he remained a part of the process.  He talked about it a little in his version of the birth story, but I want to thank you here, again, for doing that for him. For us.

Thank you for having the presence of mind to take us to a place in which we had the best chance of the birth you knew we wanted, even when I forgot that vision in the intensity of labor.  Thank you for remembering that, and thank you for constantly reminding me of the birth I wanted, even as I screamed at you that I did not want that birth anymore.  Thank you for taking us to a place where my feelings would be honored, where they would not be belittled or pooh poohed.

I want to thank you both for the unfailing faith you have in me and in what my body can do, even when I doubt it myself.  I may never get my VBAC, but I will always remember that I had women on my side who believed that I could do it, that I could birth my babies in the way I wanted to, in the way I was meant to.  You have become more than my midwives–you are the sisters of my heart.

Your faith restored me.  Your love healed me.  Your hope comforts me.

Having you in my life has absolutely transformed me.

Thank you is not enough, but it’s all I have.  So thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

Love,

Melek