My Water Birth

So I believe the last time I posted I was saying that if I set up the birthing pool, she would come. Well... she came. With a vengeance. Later on that very night, or early on the 8th, I started having contractions. They started around 12:30am and never let up. I was alone upstairs as my husband had been sleeping in the basement so I wouldn't keep him up with my snoring... and I decided that I wasn't going to disturb him with my contractions until it was really necessary. I was up all night timing them with my handy contraction timer app... yes, there is an app for that. They were totally random and longer than 5 minutes apart so there was no need to wake anyone up. At around 6am I decided to let my husband & midwife know the situation, because I knew that the baby was coming today and wanted everyone on alert. At 8am my midwife stopped in on her way to the clinic to check on me and I was between 3 & 4 cm dilated... slowly on my way to some serious active labour.

So whoever started the rumour that with each child labour gets easier & quicker probably only had one kid. With Sam my labour lasted 8 hours & with Juliet just shy of that. We were on the right track until now. About 9 hours of contractions, 4 hours of "active labour" and an hour of what they call "transition". I prefer to call that "getting run over by a train". That makes for 14 hours of labour, more than TWICE the duration of the previous 2. Just my luck. Given that I never thought that possible I spent the day unsure of just how fast things would progress, so we filled up the tub first thing in the morning. I wasn't taking any chances. I wanted in the tub almost immediately and spent the greater part of the day in it. We drained the hot water tank three times and had to continuously add pot fulls of boiling water to keep the temperature up as close to 37-38 degrees as possible. That's normal procedure though... because the heating pads are relatively useless. And the water needs to be at least 37 for the baby to be born into.

My midwife returned at around lunch time and although I was farther along I wasn't far enough for my liking. I'd been having contractions for 12+ hours now and was a tad fed up with the speed at which they were progressing. Here I was going on hour 13 of a labour I was expecting to last less that 8. My midwife gave me the option of having my "membranes" ruptured... which I gladly accepted. Anything to move this right along. Up until then my contractions were painful... but nothing like what I was about to experience. This phase of labour is called "transition". Holy shit. If I had known just how painful this was going to be I NEVER would have chosen to do this without drugs. When I made the decision to have a home water birth I truly thought I could handle it better. I didn't think it would be as painful as it was. WRONG. I don't know what the women are on who claim that home birth is a "wonderful experience"... but I certainly wasn't on it. I have NEVER felt pain like that in all of my life. It was the farthest thing from wonderful I have ever experienced. It's like having the breath knocked out of you and being run over by a train. You don't even know what to do with yourself because the pain is just so overwhelming. All you can do is beg for it to be over and repeat that you are finished and don't want to & can't do it anymore. To which everyone replies "you are doing it" and "you're doing great". Piss off. Just give me a knife so I can cut the baby out of my stomach. I'm done. I think what's worse than the actual pain is the realization that you really don't have a choice anymore. You made your choice... and now you have to suffer through it. And I mean suffer. But that doesn't stop the begging. And it isn't even the actual pushing out of the baby that hurts. I mean yes, that burns... but it's the contractions that push the baby through your cervix and into the birth canal that really make death seem inevitable. Or welcomed. So when I felt her head coming down & out I was determined to get her out... fast. Forget pushing with the contractions, I was pushing and I wasn't going to stop until she popped. Finally, at 2:25pm Sofie Valentine was born... and unbeknownst to us we were about to experience a whole new set of problems.

What they say about the pain disappearing as soon as the baby is born is 100% accurate. Gone... immediately. And there is such an overwhelming sense of relief that it is done and your baby is here. I couldn't help but shout hallelujah! Now our original plan was to leave Sofie attached to the placenta and allow the cord to stop pulsing before we clamped & cut it. Unfortunately that was not an option. When Sofie was born she had too much fluid in her lungs and was having trouble breathing. As a result she needed to be cut from the placenta almost immediately.

The midwives were not satisfied with her breathing & reflexes so the decision to call 911 was made within minutes. There wasn't any risk of her lacking oxygen to the brain but she was definitely not "pinking up" and needed to be transferred to the hospital. She could not breath on her own without the aid of oxygen. My placenta was tinted yellow so the theory was that she had aspirated amniotic fluid in utero that possible contained meconium. Along with the difficulty breathing this posed a serious risk of infection in her lungs & blood. Within 20 minutes of being born, Sofie left with my husband in an ambulance.

I didn't take much time to recover before getting out of the tub. Talk about a weird feeling. It's one thing to have a baby with an epidural, which confines you to your bed for a couple of hours after birth & allows for a bit of recovery time. It's another thing to get up and try to walk only minutes after. My entire core was weakened to the point that it was difficult to even take a full, deep breath. It felt like I too was going to need oxygen. I rested on the couch for a few minutes and then got myself organized, with the help of my friend & midwife, to go to the hospital after my daughter.

Within an hour of Sofie being born I was at the hospital. When I got to emerg Sofie was under a heat lamp with all sorts of tubes, machines, doctors, nurses & respiratory specialists surrounding her. I was so out of it that I wasn't even scared. I just was. And all I could do was watch.

The communication was horrible. No one really spoke to us at all. I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that my daughter's lungs were full of fluid, which was evident in her bulging chest. She couldn't breath without an oxygen mask and her breathing was more than twice as fast as it should be, which they compared to running a marathon, constantly. Because they feared she had aspirated meconium into her lungs it was decided that she needed to start a course of antibiotics in case there was an infection. Fair enough, but this decision was made and they began to administer the antibiotics without even consulting us first. They poked her numerous times trying to get an IV started and as a result her hands were bloody & bruised. Seriously? I'm surprised now that I didn't have a fit... another testament to just how out of it I was. It wouldn't have been the first time I lost my cool in that emergency room.

The Brockville hospital is quite primitive if you ask me. Primitive and scared of babies. I think that's why no one was communicating with us... because they were all scared. They lingered over her talking amongst themselves as if we weren't even there. They never even let me hold her. How much worse could skin to skin contact with her mother be than lying by her little self under a heat lamp? Ummmm... that's right. It couldn't be. She probably would have done better on my chest. Thank goodness CHEO had been called and they were coming to transfer her... which wasn't a good sign, but a major relief. Needless to say we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of CHEO's transport team, which at this point we thought was coming to airlift her to CHEO. Really? A few hours old and already going in a helicopter? Is this really happening?

The transport team arrived and immediately took over. The communication between the team & us parents was fantastic. They told us every little thing they were doing & going to do... and asked us permission to give her glucose. There wasn't a second that we weren't directly involved in what was going on with our daughter. And after they checked her over, holding her wasn't even a question... it just was. Finally. Five hours after Sofie was born, I got to hold my baby properly.

Its easy to see now just how out of it I was because I let them take my daughter without a tear. Even though I thought I had it all under control at the time I know now I was more in shock than I had realized. When the transport team was ready to go I handed them my baby girl like it was all okay. Ultimately it was but I find it hard to think about it now without wanting to cry. I wasn't allowed to go in the ambulance with her (the helicopter would have taken too long). That was a 90 minute trip she had to make alone... how I didn't bawl my eyes out is beyond me. I was going to the hospital too, but I had to go on my own.

It took a couple of hours for us to get to CHEO. I had to go home and pack a bag and make sure that Sam & Juliet were ok. My husband stayed home with the kids and my girlfriend Ashley & I headed off to CHEO. We didn't know what to expect, nor how long we'd be there. We just wanted to get there. When we arrived my little Valentine was waiting in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit)...

She was hooked up to all sorts of tubes & monitors but I was able to hold her as much as I wanted to. She was already doing so much better and was receiving the lowest amount of oxygen possible. Her breathing was still erratic but at least she was doing it mostly on her own, and by Thursday morning she was completely off the oxygen. I still couldn't feed her though, and it would be just over 48 hours before I could. She was on a glucose drip in the meantime. What a lovely welcome to this world... breathless & doped up on sugar.

The next day we got the prognosis. As she had aspirated fluid that could have been saturated with meconium OR if it was that she tried to breathe in the birthing pool the risk was that the water she aspirated wasn't sterile, so she needed to be A) on antibiotics and B) hospitalized until the they were finished, which was at least 5 days. The results of the bacterial cultures take at least 48 hours to come in so we wouldn't know if there was an infection until Friday afternoon, which in hospital time was Saturday morning. So we settled in for our hopefully short stay. I stayed with Sofie in the NICU and my husband & the kids settled into a Motel just outside the hospital. We spent our days at the hospital taking turns with Sofie as we were only allowed to be 2 at her bedside. I still seemed to have everything under control... but that was about to change. By Friday morning Juliet was visibly upset at the fact that we were still in the hospital. She just really wanted to go home and it was hard for her to understand why we couldn't just take Sofie home. There is a real difference between a crying 4 yr old and a sad 4 yr old.... a truly sad 4 yr old. Juliet was asking questions about Sofie and really trying not to cry. As she spoke tears just welled up in her eyes no matter how hard she tried to keep it together... it absolutely broke my heart. It was the first time I ever saw real sadness in my daughter's eyes. To make matters worse she developed a cough and was no longer allowed in the NICU to see Sofie. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I lost my mind and bawled my eyes out. It was all just too much. We sat in the hallway and both just cried.

My husband decided to take the kids out to lunch to get Juliet's mind off of everything and to get them away from the hospital. When they came back Juliet was much better. Friday was also my birthday. Although it was over shadowed by everything that was going on I still got the best birthday card ever (from the nurses). I was also given the go ahead to start breastfeeding that afternoon, which went really well. It was right time to start that REAL mother daughter bonding that should have begun days earlier...

The good news didn't stop there. Sofie was making such great progress that if the results of her cultures were negative, another chest x-ray revealed that her lungs were clear & if her newly developed jaundice wasn't at a level that required phototherapy they were going to let us out early... Saturday instead of Monday. We were very thankful especially since the doctor admitted she was surprised that Sofie was doing so well. Her cultures came back negative & her chest was all cleared up so Sofie was given the OK to go home Saturday afternoon after only 3 nights in the NICU. I was so relieved not only to be going home, but also because that meant Juliet could see her baby sister. 24 hours of not being able to walk through those NICU doors to her sister was enough for my poor little girl to handle. It was enough for me to handle. So Saturday morning Sofie finally got to put on some clothes.

So off we went. Three days old & already been in 2 ambulances... but never in a car. That's more ambulances than I've been in in my 32 years! And even though I was soooo happy to be going home, I was actually kind of scared. We'd been in such a sterile, controlled environment I was worried about taking her out of there. We were still on alert for her breathing, which could return to it's rapid pace signaling a potential bacterial pneumonia. And the fact that she was born "immuno-compromised" made it even more risky if she caught a cold or virus. Normally with the third baby you are so used to it that your attitude is considered quite lax in comparison to a first child... but here we were on our way home with even more paranoia than we had with our first born. I sat in the back seat with her, slept in her room with her, and considered buying a baby monitor that keeps track of breathing & movement. We weren't about to leave the house or let anyone visit who had even the faintest sign of a sniffle. We even considered giving away the cat because my husband was afraid she would jump in the crib & suffocate the baby. Actually, I think we had a case of paranoia much worse than that of first time parents. We've since gotten over than hump... well, mostly.

It's been 12 days and things are great. She's sleeping & eating well... no more jaundice & her breathing is just fine. Lungs are clear and she is as alert awake as she is toast asleep. She's a Charlebois... they don't come much tougher than that. And we're all happy & healthy & glad to be home. The kids, especially Juliet, are beside themselves with excitement & help out in any way they can. Sofie couldn't ask for a better brother & sister... & I couldn't ask for a better family.

If You Build It, [She] Will Come...

That's how the saying goes right? Something like that. I guess it's more a line from a movie than a saying.

I met with my midwife today. She suggested setting up the birthing pool so we don't have to worry about it once I go into labour. It takes long enough as it is to fill the tub... so to eliminate the task of having to set it up seemed logical enough. We'd been thinking of doing it anyway, and it's a good thing we did because we were missing parts! Yes... the pins that hold the tub together. Would not have been fun to find that out between contractions.

My Belly Cast

Here she is! I'm really glad we decided to go at it ourselves and not get it professionally done. Gives it so much more meaning. My husband did the initial casting with the gauze & plaster and then I went over it again after with another 2 coats of plaster I bought at Michaels. Then I tried to sand it smooth but couldn't... so I went with the 'rustic' look... which I really like now that it's all done. I dyed some plaster pink to apply the stencil to keep with the rustic look. Working with a stencil on a round, rough surface is NOT easy... but I'm happy.

Placentophagy - (from 'placenta' + Greek φαγειν, to eat) is the act of mammals eating the placenta of their young after childbirth

So it has come to my attention that many people think I am crazy because I want to encapsulate my placenta. I wonder why? Lol. Perhaps the terminology "eat my placenta" is what turns people off. I imagine that your first impression is to picture me chewing on mouthfuls of raw placenta.  Ya... that's pretty gross. But that is not that case. I am not going to cook it like a steak, or grind it up into a meatloaf, or make stew. I am vegetarian after all. But I am going to dehydrate it, grind it into a powder and put the powder into gelatin capsules so that I can take them orally as I would a vitamin. Is that so gross? The process, maybe. But the final product is nothing more than a vitamin. And a powerful one at that. So with that being said, I've decided to devote this post to the topic in hopes that I can shed some light onto the idea behind my choosing to do so. 

When I first heard the idea of ingesting the placenta I was intrigued. Although weird, I wasn't going to bash the idea without first looking into it. There is a growing trend of ingesting the placenta to help with the mother's postpartum recovery and beyond. Besides being nutritious, the placenta contains many vitamins, minerals & hormones that help a mother's body to adequately recover from pregnancy and childbirth. In addition to that recovery, ingesting the placenta also (but is not limited to):

- reducing the chances/symptoms of postpartum depression 
- reducing postpartum bleeding & aids the uterus in returning to it's original state
- reducing insomnia/sleep disorders
- increasing milk production
- increasing energy

Encapsulation is especially beneficial. Not only is it probably the method most easy to stomach, the dehydration process actually preserves the placenta so that you can benefit from it for weeks, months, or years by keeping the capsules refrigerated or frozen. Any time you feel run down, tired or emotionally fragile you can use the capsules as a 'pick me up'. Believe it or not, they can even go as far as menopause when the time comes and aide in the balance of hormones. Given that the placenta's hormonal make-up is unique to the mother, what better hormones to use during menopause than your very own?

The placenta is not something that is usually addressed during pregnancy unless there is a problem with it, so it makes sense that your initial reaction would be one of sheer disgust. With my first pregnancy the hospital actually asked me what I wanted to do with my placenta, which is rare. Often the placenta is just taken away and treated as medical waste and you never even hear or think about it. But what if, for instance, you eliminate the process of encapsulating it yourself (although this is not the case for me) and it was returned to you when you left the hospital already in a pill format that the doctor prescribed as part of your postpartum recovery? Would you think that was gross? What if it was routinely discussed during pregnancy and it's benefits truly, fully understood?  Would that make it normal? If the placenta was your responsibility and you needed to make a decision based on informed knowledge, what was to be done with it, it might not be so strange. Unfortunately, I'm sure that a very large percentage of women who give birth in a hospital don't even know what the placenta looks like. But if you were offered the information on it's role both in utero & postpartum, perhaps your opinion would be different. After all, it is a vital organ in the generation of new life. It's what nourishes your baby throughout your pregnancy, passing oxygen and nutrients to your baby, as well as secreting important hormones. And it's benefits don't end with childbirth. Those benefits can be preserved and used for years to come. Many cultures honor the placenta. It is becoming increasingly popular to plant the placenta in the ground with a tree growing over top. So why not go the next level and explore the idea of placenta ingestion? It has been a part of Chinese medicine for centuries. In our "western" culture/society it's just new. Unexplored. Different. And the idea of doing it yourself may turn you off. But the number of encapsulating specialists is growing rapidly, eliminating the "nasty" process of doing it yourself. Go ahead and Google it. You'd be surprised at how much information there is and just how many people are in fact, eating their placenta.


SOURCES:

http://placentabenefits.info/

http://www.cafemom.com/journals/read/1577334/Placenta_Encapsulation_Instructions_w_Pictures

Ode to 37 Weeks

I couldn't sleep last night so between the hours of about 2 & 4:30 for some reason I was compelled to write this poem. I have no idea where it came from... but it kept me up.


My back is sore
My belly aches
My muscles stretched & beat
My cervix stings, the pressure's on
I cannot see my feet

My arms are fat
My legs are huge
My arm pits aren't the same
The speed at which I move around is really quite a shame

It feels like something's in my pelvis stretching me apart
Like walking with a ball stuck in between my private parts

Ive got swollen hands & swollen feet
That jiggle when I walk
My boobs have grown four times their size
My nipples too, a lot

I get up ever hour cuz I always have to pee
I snore so loud my husband he won't even sleep with me

Carpal tunnel plagues my wrists
And is even in my hands
Every time I sneeze or cough I risk peeing my pants

My stretchy clothes just barely fit
My underwear are tight
Sitting up ain't comfortable nor lying down at night

My Braxton hicks contractions getting stronger by the minute
Acid reflux is a battle even Maalox cannot win it

The water retention in my legs makes them hard to bend
I have rolls all down my back & sides
I want this all to end

Hormones hormones hormones that are rushing through my system
The emotion & the crying & the meltdowns that go with them

My skin is stretched & itches & my belly button's awful
My body is so big now I don't even walk, I waddle

Im lazy and im tired and I sleep an awful lot
Who ever made this 40 weeks should definitely be shot

In Utero

36 Weeks & Counting...

So here we are. 36 weeks. Today I stood on the scale at the YMCA and was pleasantly surprised that it considers me lighter than my scale at home. Yay YMCA scale. 182lbs suits me fine. So... with that being said, CAN WE BE DONE YET PLEASE??!! Forget the aching muscles & weight & breathlessness & fatigue... the heartburn & acid reflux alone is enough to have my uterus removed to prevent further childbearing. I've also been accused of LOUD sleeping... similar to a highway semi so I'm told. So I've voluntarily banished myself to the basement. I'm ready for this all to be done. I have one more week to go to be allowed to continue with the home birth, and I pick up my birthing pool tomorrow. I am also looking into getting a belly cast done, if someone would just respond to my emails. Geez. Is it wrong of me to expect a response within 24 hours?? Isn't that just good customer service?? Hopefully it'll all come together in time. In the meantime.. here's my belly.

Adventures in Diapering

My husband & I thought about cloth diapering when I was pregnant with Juliet. We visited a store in Ottawa and were there for over an hour thinking about it. I think what deterred us was the off the bat $400-ish commitment and the over-whelming ease of disposable diapers. I don't know what is different this time, for some reason the whole idea of cloth diapering seems really easy & appealing to me now.

I'm sure my husband was diapered in cloth... geez he was raised in the woods with no electricity & boiled hot water on the gas stove to bathe in. Read by candle-light & used the stove elements as a toaster.... peed in a pot by night & in an outhouse by day. Cloth diapers couldn't have been a far cry from that lifestyle. My mom used cloth diapers for me... mostly because were in in Mexico for most of my diapering years and the diapers there my mom described as a 1 ply tissue in a plastic bag. I also spent a lot of time running naked on the beach. Also, if I remember correctly, my Granny (dad's mom) gave my mom the gift of diaper service for when we were back in Canada, which is an awesome gift and a service that should really be more alive today than it is. Or at least more wide spread. Unfortunately we don't have the benefit of a diaper service, but we do have a local company that sells everything we need. SO.... after a quick $300 investment...

We picked up our infant starter kit today. This initial investment should last us the first 6 months... if we don't give up and throw the whole idea (shitty diapers included) out the window. It seems pretty easy though... and there are a lot of accessories today that make it even easier.

In addition to the kit I picked up a dozen preemie sized cloth diapers that are supposed to fit babies from 4-9 lbs. Given that my first 2 were born under 7 lbs... I wasn't going to take any chances.

They're so small!!!!!

Here's the rest of the kit...

In addition to the dozen preemie diapers & 2 covers the kit comes with 24 infant size diapers & 6 covers. It also comes with 300 flushable liners that make for an even easier clean-up!! There's a HUGE wet bag and I bought a smaller one for traveling. The wet bags are like diaper pails. You just put the dirty diapers in the wet bag, zip it up... and throw it all in the wash every 2-3 days. Just turn the bag inside out et voila!

The kit also came with a sample of some bum blam, because traditional diaper creams are a no-no with cloth diapers.... as are regular detergents, fabric softeners & bleach. Who said this was more economical?

I have to pre-wash the diapers AT LEAST 3 times before I use them. I need a special detergent that has...

-no fabric softener
-no bleach
-no natural oils
-no perfumes
-no dyes
-no UV brighteners
-no stain guard ingredients
-no enzymes

Ummm.... ok. That leaves me with something I hope I can find in the organic section of the grocery store, which shouldn't be a problem but will be expensive. The amount of detergent I use is supposed to be quite minimal... less than recommended, so I guess that works in favour of "economical".

Each time I wash the diapers I need to do a cold pre-wash with NO detergent. Then the diapers get washed in hot water & dried in the dryer (or on the line). More work... more money. I guess the extra money spent on special detergent, special bum balm (if needed) & extra water doesn't end up comparing to the money spent on disposable diapers. AND... the satisfaction of using cloth diapers and not contributing to the deterioration of the environment via disposable diapers is a payoff in itself. 

I'm getting excited. I hope that it all goes as easy as I think it will go & we don't run into any problems. I'm sure this won't be the first time I write about adventures in diapering....

Baby's Room

Done. FINALLY. I went super traditional and chose pink. When my mom was here before Christmas she & the kids went at 'er and got the room painted. But I wasn't satisfied and we ran out of time. Something was missing. With that in mind... I hit the ground running with the marvelous idea to add some stripes to the walls. Who's dumb idea was that again?? Oh yeah. Mine.

Soon after I began taping out the pattern I seriously began to reconsider. What was I thinking? Two days and numerous contractions later the taping was done... and I was losing interest. I decided to give it a rest for the weekend. Yesterday I was at it again. I mixed the left over pink paint with half a gallon of white paint to create a light pink for the stripes. On it went with a roller. I was so tempted to just leave it at that and pass off the roller marks as texture but I didn't. Today I tackled the actual texture I wanted to add to the stripes to finish the job. I used a brush and roughly painted a second coat on all the small stripes. Then I added some raspberry colorant to the light pink paint and roughly rubbed it over the largest stripe.

There were NUMEROUS times I wanted to give up or to just do a half-ass job... but I didn't. I pulled through and the room looks fabulous. I wish I had different curtains but I really want to keep the room dark for sleeping... so I just added some white sheers over Sam's old brown curtains. I set up my changing alcove in the old closet and added some artwork. All that's missing.... the baby. Oh and maybe some newborn clothes & PJ's... fitted crib sheets.... diapers... wipes....

Home Birth Craziness... & A Little Complainin'

Only two months to go. Phew. Although I don't know if I can manage that. Haven't been sleeping lately because of CONSTANT acid reflux. It's even causing a sore throat! I made the kids lunches in the middle of the night last night. My stomach is soooooooo high that I can't hunch over & stretch it in the opposite direction, which is causing some serious middle back strain. Sometimes so much that I lose my breath. It's just awesome. Can I be done now??

I must admit that I am really looking forward to my home birth experience. It gets crazier by the day. With that being said I am also a bit paranoid that I will end up in the hospital with a c-section. I say that because I know that the baby is breech. I know it's silly because there is MORE than enough time for her to turn... but I am just worried about losing the control of my own labour. For instance... if I wind up with a c-section I can't have the baby in my arms right away. I've been told that it's only minutes but I still feel that those minutes are valuable and important bonding minutes. That and it's a loss of control. I also can't deliver in the water in the hospital... and if I end up there for any reason other than a c-section I won't be able to deliver in the water. More loss of control. I say to myself that I am just going to get in the tub and say 'make me get out'. Ha. Whatcha gonna do now doctor. Anyway... every woman has their impending labour paranoia's.. these are mine.

On the up side... I mentioned that the home birth plans are developing into some kind of full out tribal ritual. Someone mentioned to me the idea of consuming your placenta after childbirth, placentophagy. Hmmmmmm... that got my hamster spinning. Every single mammal in the animal kingdom eats their placenta except the camel (and I don't know why they don't). The kangaroo doesn't even deliver the placenta but rather re-absorbes it. So why are we so quick to dispose of this very important organ? There are many benefits to consuming your placenta. It reduces the chances of post-partum depression. It helps to control bleeding. It helps the uterus return to its normal state. It is full of nutrients. So I figured... why not? There are tons of women who do this and tons of recipes for cooking your placenta. Ya... I'm not taking that route. There is a far more bearable route you can take in encapsulating your placenta.... dehydrating it and putting in gel caps, which is way more my cup of tea.

Another idea we've begun tossing around is giving the baby all the benefits of the placenta after birth. This is done by NOT cutting the umbilical cord. In the hospital everything about childbirth is so rushed. Cutting the umbilical cord happens within minutes. I asked my midwife about it & wondered at what point do we have to cut the cord? Her answer.... never. She personally doesn't clamp the cord until it has stopped pulsing, which indicates that the transfer of substances between the placenta & baby is complete. Ideally, keeping the baby attached to the placenta for at least an hour is extremely beneficial. The baby absorbs all the blood & nutrients from the placenta. Another option is called a lotus birth, where the placenta is never detached and naturally detaches itself with the umbilical cord around 3 days after birth. We've definitely got some decisions to make....

With all that being said, here's a picture of me from a couple weeks ago at 29 weeks. Could I get any bigger???

Home Birth 101

So I'm starting to prepare the kids for what to expect when the baby comes. My midwife suggested that I give the kids the option to stay for the birth, all the while making sure that there is someone to take care of them if they choose to leave. No problem. When I asked them what they'd like to do they both agreed that they would like to stay. So... the next step was to show them videos of home water births (of which there are plenty on Youtube) so that they know what to expect.

I decided a couple of weeks ago that it would be a good time to show them a video. I searched on Youtube and found plenty of examples that I screened first for appropriateness. In the first one I watched the woman gave birth with a bit of moaning & groaning. I was like... seriously? I need a video of a woman moaning & screaming through childbirth not having an orgasm.

We sat down to watch a video, both kids excited. I pressed play and watched my kids take it all in. It wasn't a bad video... just realistic. They were both fully aware of where the baby 'comes out' so I knew there wouldn't be any questions about that. I told them that I would probably be making the same sort of sounds and that even though it hurts mommy it's okay... it's nothing to worry about. They seemed okay with that... but Sam quickly changed his mind about staying for the birth and asked "Can I go to Patrick's house?" Juliet's reaction, "I don't want to grow up".

It was a good start. I sort of figured that Sam would be un-interested in participating and that Juliet would be front & centre. Sam would rather be playing Wii. I've said before that as long as the Wii is on... I could be right beside him having the baby and he wouldn't even notice. If he want's to go to his buddy's house... that's fine with me.

I see my midwife in a couple of days. It's a PD day at school so the kids will be coming with me. I told them that they were going to get to meet the lady who will help me deliver the baby. "To who?" Sam asks. I guess 'deliver' is too literal a word for a 6 year old. I explained what I meant and he reiterated that he was going to Patrick's house. I asked Juliet if she was going to stay and help the lady 'catch' the baby. "Does she need help from little girls?" She asked. Of course she does.

So far so good. As it gets closer we'll talk more about it but I think it's going to be a great experience for all of us. I've asked my friend Ashley to come... or rather she asked me. My mom will probably be in town and I've asked my sister if she wanted to be here, so there will be no shortage of people to help with the kids. I'm really looking forward to it, as crazy as that seems.

Baby Names?

Naturally, I am constantly changing my mind about what I would like to name our baby girl. I was certain she would be Josephine but now I'm not sure if that's even on the list. I've gone through various websites to gain inspiration and have come up with a few names that I like:

Sofie
Esmé
Winter
Valentina
Vivienne
Sadie
Ruby

I know these will change a million times over. I really like Sofie, but I keep searching & adding to the list anyway. I will probably have to see her to pick the final name... which means she may remain nameless for weeks like Juliet was.

A site I visited today provided a link to a page of celebrity baby names. That is the inspiration for this post. Here is a list of actual celebrity baby names. They don't include last names. It's shocking.

Audio Science
Fifi-Trixibelle
Little Pixie
Peaches Honeyblossom
Mirabella Bunny
Poet Sienna Rose
Antonio Kamakanaalohamaikalani Harvey
Bluebell Madonna
Java Jumala
Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily
Moxie Crimefighter
Daisy Boo
Petal Blossom Rainbow
Poppy Honey
Sistine Rose
Sonnet Noel
True Isabella Summer
Tu Simone
Bandit Lee (for a girl!)
Pilot Inspektor
Bear Blu
Bridie
Diva Muffin
Moon Unit
Seven Sirius
Diesel Dean
Speck Wildhorse

Seriously? Some of these names are okay alone... but paired up as they have been they're horrifying. There were a lot more, but these are the ones that stood out the most. For the full list of celebrity baby names click here.

21 weeks

Yep. I'm over the 'hump'. Only 19 more weeks to go. So I thought I would try and take some belly pictures. I was really into it during my first 2 pregnancies... and I took some nice photos. This time.... not so much. I decided that I would try taking photos of me doing yoga poses. Why that seemed like such a good idea I will never know. Talk about un-flattering. Maybe my belly just isn't big enough yet. I just look large. Anyway... I played with a few and decided that I'd share a couple with you. The first one is the fish. It doesn't do much in the way of showing off my belly... but it's kinda cool.

We had an ultrasound yesterday. It was fabulous. I've never felt so connected by an ultrasound as I did yesterday. She is beautiful. Yes... another girl.  It was like I could see her... right there in my stomach. She didn't look like an image... she looked like a baby. My baby... all 8 ounces of her. She was so busy kicking. I could see her little body in it's entirety, and how she was perfectly bundled up inside. I saw her bum... it was perfect.  I am so excited.

The 16 Week Rant

Because I am going through such a wonderful period in my life right now I thought that I should share my joy with everyone. Let's start with a little trivia.

Pregnancy is....

A) A miracle

B) An amazing journey & experience where one human creates another

C) A never ending battle of emotions & hormones, severe fatigue, loss of energy, painful bloating, constant heartburn & continuous weight gain.

I pick C. If I'm not so tired that even relaxing is draining, my bowels are pinching my nerves from the inside, my stomach acids are burning away at my esophagus, or my painfully bloated stomach needs its own support system. Oh joy.

The Emergency Room... An Embarassing Adventure?

So it's five past 8. Kids are on the bus (I so love that!). I've been up since 4. Why? Well first of all because Sam woke me up wanting to get into bed with me. Second of all, because I then began having wicked, wicked stomach cramps and couldn't get back to sleep. I could barely move. The pain was in the "lower left quadrant" of my abdomen and it was debilitating. I couldn't really find any position that felt good or made it go away... and when I got up to go to the bathroom I got hot flashes & felt like I was going to throw up or pass right out. I thought at first it must be gas pains but then I was like... since when do gas pains make you want to pass out? And the area was concentrated to one specific spot... so it was weird. I had a gut feeling that everything was okay with the baby and that perhaps this had nothing to do with that but I was a bit worried nonetheless and kept checking for signs of a problem. There were no such signs other than the severe pain and nothing seemed to be making it go away. Yes, I even passed gas, but nothing seemed to help.

here we go again...

Hello. So it's happening again. My body is kicking my ass to make another person. Yep.... pregnant again. Number 3. I don't know why I thought this time would be different. All you have to do is say "pregnancy" to my body and it gains 10 pounds. Lovely. But I am really excited to have a little baby around again.... until, of course, it wakes me up in the middle of the night, then I may not be so excited. But for now I am.... and so is the rest of the fam.

So this isn't the first time I've blogged.  But I failed miserably the first round. It was good for a while... but then I lost my mojo and it quickly went downhill. I just stopped posting. But there were some good times... and I may post there again. I'll keep the less family oriented stuff for there and here you can just keep up with the Charlebois. Funny things happen in life. And funny things happen in families. Better still, funny things happen in children. Out of the mouths of babes they say. So I thought I would try and blog about us and our adventures. It may work, it may not. But I'm sure family & friends will appreciate it.

This is us...

together we bring you...












and most recently...

This is my family. Keep up with us if you can!
xoc