I'm Going There

I have a confession: I don't always fail to blog because I don't have any ideas. I have plenty of ideas that I would really like to communicate, to get down on paper/in text box, but they seem too huge to undertake or I don't know from which angle to approach it or whatever excuse I can come up with.

One of these topics is birth. It is so hard to begin to touch upon the many facets of the issue, let alone my emotions pertaining thereto. Perhaps I have more feelings than ability to express them, as is often the case. In such circumstances, I read as much as I possibly can, which is cathartic but, ultimately, confusing.

Today I read this post from the ICAN blog about the rise in unnecessary cesareans, and I've had a moment of clarity. It summarizes the root of my anger. I had a c-section with my first and only (so far) baby. I believe this c-section was unnecessary. My doctor could probably give you a handful of good-sounding reasons why I had to have a c-section. I don't buy any of them.

Here are the facts:

• I had elevated blood pressure for the final few weeks of pregnancy.
• I was not dilated or effaced at all.
• I was induced for high blood pressure five days before my due date.
• I did not respond to the Pitocin in a textbook way: contractions were irregular, even at maximum dosage.
• The doctor artificially ruptured my membranes at 1.5 cm dilation, against my expressed wishes.
• I did not progress beyond 2-3 cm dilation.
• My baby weighed 9 lb 1 oz at birth.

The "reason" I ended up with a c-section, according to my doctor? Big baby, of course! Never mind that smaller women than me give birth naturally to much larger babies every day. Never mind that I had a rock-bottom Bishop score, which indicates a likely unsuccessful induction.

Are all c-sections bad? Of course not. Does the procedure save lives when properly indicated? Absolutely. I'm really glad there is such a thing as a c-section and that it does not necessarily kill the mother like it did in days of yore. And to be completely fair, I do not fault a woman who, having educated herself and been informed of her options, chooses a c-section. 

But I did not choose a c-section and I had one anyway. So what now? I want several more children and no more major surgery, so I must pray and hope for successful VBACs ever after. 

I am still angry. Not just because of what happened, but because of what came next. This is what my doctor told me in my postpartum visit, I kid you not: 

• I probably won't ever be able to birth vaginally if all my babies are as big as this one.
• I can't be induced as a VBAC candidate, so if I go past my due date, it's an automatic scheduled c-section. Yes, the "due date," a mere midpoint in a long range of possible days to give birth (50% of all births occur after the due date, including 100% of my mother's, if that matters), will now become an unfair and somewhat arbitrary deadline for nature.
• If I have another baby within two years, it's an automatic scheduled c-section.

I am never seeing that doctor again. And now my search for something better has me more and more horrified at the state of obstetrics in our country that something like this is as common as it is. I'm not denying the possibility that the alternative to my c-section could have been much worse. But the skyrocketing c-section rates, especially among first-time mothers should mean that there is a sudden and sharp rise in giant babies and woefully undersized pelvises--indeed, an epidemic! sweeping the nation. The very notion is ludicrous. This rush-to-induce and failure-to-wait has to STOP. 

It crushes me every time I hear of another first-time mother who is induced and sectioned. Doctors trying to lighten their case loads and hospitals trying to free beds in their labor and delivery wards are seriously jeopardizing the bodily integrity and reproductive freedom of women everywhere. It's shocking to me that this does not bother some people in the least. It saddens me when others trivialize my anger by telling me (or implying) that at least my baby is healthy or that so-and-so's vaginal birth was bad so I should be glad I had a c-section.

It scares me that a second c-section might necessarily limit my family size. I'm scared that, as educated as I am, I may fall into the system's traps again. I'm scared that I won't go into labor, or that I will but will then fail to progress. And when I think about how scared I am, I get angry all over again.

My daughter's birthday is something to celebrate. She changed my life forever and every passing year of her life is something to treasure. Her actual birth, however? One of the worst days of my life, actually. 

Heh

This made me chortle.

Erich: "Do we have any more Kleenex?"

Susan: "I dunno."

Erich: sighing "I put you in charge of ONE THING--

Susan: sharp intake of breath, ready to protest

Erich: ". . .the house. . .and you don't even know if we have any Kleenex!"


I guess this is one of those "had to be there" things, but I lol'd. :)

Oh Snap

Totally forgot to put something up yesterday. NaBloPoMo fail! Sigh, something so easy, failed so easily.

K, over it. At this exact moment, I'm caught in the vicious cycle of tired. I'm tired enough to crash, but there are tasks yet to be completed. But I'm too tired to do anything. But I don't want to go to bed and leave too much for the morning. (I'm a night owl, btw.) So I stay up. But nothing gets done. And now I'm too tired to do anything AND I'm too tired to go to bed.

This happens shamefully often. I only ever remember that I love to sleep when someone or something is demanding that I get up in the morning. When will I ever learn?

Ode to a Special Lady

This post is both overdue and underdue. There is one very special lady in my life without whom I wonder how I could function.

My mom and I have always been buddies, and I never outgrew needing to talk to her and get help from her. Does anyone, really? I feel blessed that she's in my life and that we live so close to each other.

In the past year alone, she's helped me organize my house after moving in, she helped me remove wallpaper and paint several rooms. She helped immensely when Lily was born with household chores and baby-holding so I could take showers and feel human. Her house has been available for me to be a little lazy when I need a break. She feeds me and takes me shopping. She watches Lily whenever I ask.

She's a peaceful mediator when Lily and I are getting on each other's nerves. She's a sounding board for me and my scattered thoughts. She puts my baby to sleep. She even helped with bedtime tonight. She never asks for anything in return.


My mom is the bomb. I know Lily will have a pretty great mom in her adulthood some day because I learned from the best. A thousand thank yous are not enough. Even so, THANK YOU, MOM!!!

Pray for Me

While you're at it, you could pray for Erich and the other men of my family as they head to nowhere to sit around a fire to drink beer and call it "hunting."

What this means for me is that while I'm used to Erich traveling, it's never over a weekend, and never EVER when I have to play organ. I'm already tired, literally and figuratively.

Thank the Lord I have family in town! I'm going to need all the help I can get.

Can't Think

I can't think of anything to blog about today. And that shall be my topic.

For starters, I have a headache. It's a kind of perfect storm combination of sinus congestion/can't breathe through nose, tension, and sense of impending doom.

"Doom" may be an overstatement. But I'm finally realizing that Thanksgiving is in one week and Christmas is in five and a half weeks, and that's just not right. I have short-term to-do list items piling up that I want to get done this week. Meanwhile, our gift list grows every year, and I am already completely out of ideas. Add to the Christmas list people who have birthdays right around then and whose birthdays we've missed and, well, we just added to my headache.

I wish I had a flair for gift-giving. Maybe I just need more practice. More than just thinking of the right gift, I need to know when to let go and accept whatever may happen next: the recipient already has or doesn't like the gift, for example. I get paralyzed enough when shopping for myself; shopping for 19 people plus birthdays completely levels me. Every year I think it's going to be fun, and every year I wait just a little longer than I should to start getting it under control.

So there's part of the "doom" quadrant of my headache. The other part is I have to play organ this Sunday, and Erich is going to be off at deer camp. I've never had to figure out a whole Sunday morning of organ-playing with kid sans husband. Not to mention the practicing I need to get done beforehand and the housecleaning that needs to be done before the arrival of BIL and roommate on Tuesday. Wait, Thanksgiving is next week?? REALLY??

The sinus congestion is just super annoying, and the tension is from sleeping wrong and perhaps (but I hope not) too much knitting. But ugh, the doom. Can I just skip to the hot chocolate and pajamas part of Christmas?

So, sorry I have nothing to blog about today.

Prompt

I'm going with a NaBloPoMo prompt today:

How did you end up where you're living right now? What factors will help you choose the next place you live?


I believe I chronicled our house hunt here, here, and here. To summarize, this house felt the most like home and was the closest to the complete package that we could get in our budget. Every project seemed doable, and they would be if we had the time and money to do them. Many unforeseen problems that always seem to happen with houses have tempered our joy of living here, but we're generally happy.

There are some factors in which this house is not ideal in the long run:

• It has three bedrooms, but they're on two different levels (one being the basement) and on opposite corners. This works okay with one child and maybe two, but not for long.
• The layout is a bit weird. I'm going to spare details on that because I don't want to go to complaining territory. Suffice it to say I can see why certain traditional layouts stand the test of time for family function.
• There are too many huge projects which might not be worth doing for how long we want to be here and for how much we could stand to gain on attempting them. Our main bathroom will need to be gutted; it's unlikely we'll ever take down the horrible paneling in the basement, but horrible it most certainly is; these windows, they're a curse. Etc.
• One-car garage. Actually, for us right now, and probably forever, no-car garage. Bleh.

So, my next house, in five years or so, must have:

• Budget-friendliness! Of course.
• Move-in readiness. We're just not fixer-uppers.
• Four bedrooms, all on the same floor and away from main living areas.
• Two-car garage.
• Good location, whatever that will mean at this unspecified time in the future.
• No mice, ever. 
• And on my "dare I hope?" list: a true master suite, kitchen with lots of counter space and a pantry (what a dream!), big back yard with a nice deck.

So, that's my wish list. My dream list would be much, much longer, but that's not the point. One thing I've learned as a grown-up is to think about what would be the least it would take to make me happy and then shoot a level or two higher than that. Life is too full of disappointments to have unrealistic goals.

Erichisms

Since Lily's still too young to say the darnedest things, I will share one of my favorite Erichisms:

It's tired in here.

It's too tired in here for a substantive blog post tonight. One of these days I'm going to tell you all about laundry (REJOICE!), but I keep waiting till it's too late to do the topic justice.

I kind of like laundry. Be forewarned.