Camille's Birth

The other day I typed up a great big post about the birth and home birth.  And somehow it got deleted.  So I'm very sorry, but since I also have a stack of days-old emails to go through, you'll get the shortened version (actually, that's probably what you want anyway).

Jason sure had me fooled.  The baby is a girl, and we named her Camille.  We had a beautiful home birth, and I loved, loved, loved it.  It was fast (a little too fast at just over 2 hours), and easy. 

 

I had a little 24 hour flu bug when I gave birth (though I didn't realize it until hours later).  I was chilling while in labor.  So while most women might be stripping, I ran to the closet and grabbed a sweater, and had Jason warm up the rice pad for me.

 

The kids were speechless when the woke up in the morning, and there was a new baby in the house.  

Camille is a name I've loved forever.  Very popular when I was growing up, but I don't think she'll run into too many her age.

The kids love having a new sister.  The transition has been much easier than I anticipated, though I had my mom here and my MIL here for a while, so I've only been on my own about a day :)  I'm sure our first trip with me and 3 kids to the grocery store will be exciting. 

And as far as home birth goes, all I can say is, I'm not crazy.  And I'm not a risk-taker (in fact, Dana is still rear-facing in her carseat!).   I stopped telling people I was home birthing because I got tired of people being scared for me.  It doesn't surprise me.  I know exactly what they are thinking, because it is exactly what I thought until I actually read something about it.  It seems really unsafe.  I'm not trying to convince everyone to home birth.  But I do think if women took the time to read about it, and know their birth options, many more women would choose to do it.  It started with me contemplating a natural birth.  I felt a little sad I had birthed 2 babies and didn't know what childbirth was like.  I felt like I was missing out on a huge part of being a woman, of what women have been experiencing for thousands of years, of a huge part of mortality.  And I wondered if it would help the baby to not be refluxy (I'm sure you'll be hearing more about this later).  So I started reading just about natural childbirth.  First, I discovered my OB was wrong: There are advantages to a natural birth.  Big advantages.  Health advantages.  Risk advantages. 

Then I discovered there are advantages to home birth.  

And then I discovered it is just as safe to home birth if:

1. You are low risk

2.  You are within 30 min. of a hospital

3. You have a qualified birth attendant.

Whoah!  I know what you're thinking: "How could that be?  What about if something happens?  What about my sister/friend/coworker who...?  What about how they had to administer ____ to me?"  I'd love to answer these questions, but I'm tired.  If you're curious, look it up.  I spent probably 60 hours researching the topic before I felt comfortable going ahead with it.  I read the pro-side of home birth, and the con-side of home birth, because one thing I've really learned is in health, there are 2 sides to every story, and everyone has a different opinion.  I found this book extremely enlightening. And this movie is a good surface summary of the obstetrics vs midwifery models of birth, though I'll warn you, you see nipples and it says the F word.  I loved watching the natural births in it, though. 

So here's to every woman having the safest best birth for them.  I love childbirth.  It really is amazing.  I really feel so much luckier than men. 

Clarification and Making Progress

Okay, so I know I've had that terribly grumpy/depressing blog post up for too long.  I appreciate all of your responses and encouragement.  We are making progress.  I did buy raw milk, and am making kefir, which I believe will help.  I have seen some natural health practitioners, and am hoping to make progress with my kids there.  And sometime our sourdough starter should be coming in the mail...

I would just like to clarify that I don't think that doctors are bad.  I don't think that western medicine is bad.  I do believe that the FDA and Big Pharma aren't as concerned about people's overall health as most people think they are.  I do believe that politics and money have a lot to do with what goes on in those departments.  But I also believe that western medicine has and does save lots of lives.  Antibiotics were a wonderful discovery. However, I think that kids don't need them for every ear infection, and that antibiotics are way over used.  I like how greensmoothiegirl (I know, the ultimate authority.  Ha ha.  But I just got her book for Christmas, and I love it, actually) says antibiotics should be more of a once or twice in a lifetime event. Similarly I believe that vaccines are the hallmark discovery of modern medicine, and are very important to the health of society. But I also don't think vaccines are as harmless as most main-stream people believe, and they should be cleaned up and "greenified" before being given to infants.  I currently do not follow the vaccine schedule for my kids.  But I do believe in vaccinating.  I would also never dare go without medical insurance.

Anyway, for those of you whose dads or husbands are doctors, I'd like to say I believe most doctors are upright, honest people.  I think they do what they have been taught, some of which, I think is necessary.  I just don't think that western medicine has all the answers.  I think largely the corruption that exists is up higher in the system (Big Pharma, FDA, CDC, etc.), which decides the curriculum for the medical schools.  I've read some natural health beliefs on fluoride, and a some people make the argument that your dentist has a conflict of interest, because if you have perfectly healthy teeth, you won't need dental work done.  I honestly, at this point, haven't read enough about fluoride to decide what I think about it, yet.  But I do know my dad, a dentist, believes in it, and he doesn't tell his patients to use it so he can get more business.  He's one of the most honest people I know.  Definitely in most situations, if there is corruption, it's up higher on the totem pole. I guess I've just felt lately that I trusted in western medicine too completely before, and never considered other options.  I think it's wise to realize that Drs only know what they have been taught, and they haven't been taught in natural healing, which I believe also should have its place in society.

That said, I think anytime there's a large amount of money at stake, there can be corruption.  There is corruption also in the natural health world, I'm sure (I've seen that a little as well).  I guess my eyes have opened up to other possibilities lately, and I only wish I'd realized them before.  I appreciate those people who have introduced me to some aspects of holistic healing.  Put holistic healing an natural health with western medicine, and I think we all have the possibility of long and healthy lives.  That's all.  Bye.

Overwhelmed and a bash on the medical field

Here is a really long post that unless you're bored, I'm sure you won't want to read.  But I need to get some stuff off my chest (it'll make me feel better, I promise), so I'm posting it anyway:

I am having a baby in a couple of months.  I don't know what I'm going to do.  Really.  I am very excited to have a baby, and how blessed I am to be able to have them.  But I'm also overwhelmed with my life.  I know all babies are an adjustment.  But babies with reflux are oh, so much more (some of you know what I'm talking about).  Levi, as a baby cried all the time.  ALL the time.  He would sleep only in my arms, so we slept in the recliner together for months.  I got out of my PJ's probably 2x a week, and I got a bath maybe every other day, but my bath was always less than 5 min, because he'd wake up screaming.  I estimate he cried 18 hours a day, every day, until he was 3 mo. old.  I called the pediatrician over and over, and his (ignorant) nurse told me to relax and give him gripe water.  "It's just colic" she'd say.  Ha.  I went in after hours a couple times when things seemed really bad, and the Dr. didn't seem to know anything.  At his 2 mo check, I told the Dr. when Levi nursed he'd break away screaming all the time.  That's the first time I'd heard anyone suggest reflux.  So they started on the mild meds, and by the time we got the heavy meds (Prevacid) going, and his esophagus healed, and he stopped crying , he was 3 mo old.  He turned into an angel baby.

Seemed like an easy fix.  I could deal with that.  Prevacid is expensive, but what a world of difference.  So, when Dana came along, and started showing reflux signs, I took her in immediately, and demanded the meds.  The nurse (different nurse, but equally ignorant) told me reflux doesn't start until 6 mo old.  Whatever.  Not to be cocky, but I think I know more about a lot of health issues than do most nurses :)  I read a lot, you see.  Anyway, I demanded an appointment with the Dr., and he willingly let us get the medicine.  Dana's reflux, I'm pretty sure was even worse than Levi's, though I never let her get to that point of un-medicated pain, so she didn't cry nearly as much.  But she had to sleep in her carseat until she was 4 mo old, even on a heavy dose of prevacid.  If I laid her down flat, she wake up within 3 min - and I could hear her first "urp" up something, swallow it again, and she'd cry and be awake.  It was obvious it wasn't just that she was "used" to her sleeping habits.  It was definitely heartburn.  Oh, and I even had to elevate her carseat even more than regular, or she'd urp herself awake.  Dana still had colic in the evenings (a mystery as well, but only 3 hours a night instead of 18 hours a day.  But still, poor baby in pain).  Levi was on prevacid until 6 mo, and seemed to have no further trouble.  Dana was 8 mo.

Does reflux get worse with each kid?  So I've been pretty worried about Dana lately.  She has anxiety.  I'm not sure from what, but she's fine when we go places, but at home, she's extremely anxious.  Making dinner around here is a joke.  I break so many dishes because I'm cooking with one hand and Dana in the other.  It's hard.  She cries whenever I put her down, even if I've been holding her for an hour.  I kept thinking she'd grow out of it, but she's 19 mo old, the baby's almost here, and if anything it's worse.  What am I going to do?  Really, what am I going to do?  She does sleep through the night (since 14 mo old - I know, I'm ready for some judgmental thoughts from you all, but really, I've read the books, did what they said, and it didn't work).  She takes a nap.  And she plays with her brother.  But she's clingy and anxious too much of the time where I don't know what a newborn on top of that will do to her or to me.  Then, as I was investigating the cause of the unending anxiety, I started noticing her silently urping inside.  Does she still have reflux?  Maybe that's why she's anxious. 

At her well check recently the Dr. actually brought up the reflux again before I told him some of the things I'd noticed.  And the dark circles under her eyes (and Levi's) are most likely a food allergy.  Great.

Is it all related?  I'm seriously losing faith in the medical field.  WHY do so many babies have reflux?  Has God really put so many tiny infants on the earth for thousands of years with severe heartburn and no way to treat it until the 20th century when prevacid was invented?  Makes no sense.  Isn't infantile reflux going UP?  It is, which is, I'm sure why these ignorant older nurses, and the older Dr's don't even know about infant reflux.

So what's causing it?  I've been reading around for months trying to figure out what to do for our next babe.  Prevacid was, of course, my back-up.  But what do I read?  Prevacid may be causing food intollerances.  Prevacid diminishes the acids in the stomach, so they are still refluxing, but it doesn't burn.  Well, acids are needed for digestion.  Uh oh.  See where I'm going with this?

So I want to start at the basics.  How to PREVENT the reflux.  Is it the epidural, the pitocin, the abx during labor for GBS, the HepB vaccine, what I'm eating, environmental toxins, the hormones in cow's milk (we've actually largely been off dairy for almost a year around here for various reasons).  Man, I hope it's not wheat.  Do you know how hard it is to make major changes to your diet?  Especially your children's diets when others aren't supportive? There is reason to believe that any or all or a mixture of these things could be leading to the problem.  The information is overwhelming

All I do is study health.  I don't scrapbook, sew, decorate my house, etc.  All I want to do is find out what the heck is wrong with my kids so I can fix it.  First I study it out, find out everyone has a different opinion, no one really knows what is wrong with our health in America, try to figure out what I think, then find recipes I like, talk my family into liking them, and feel like a "mean" mom when I don't want my kids to eat certain things. 

Dr's are all about treating symptoms.  It's true.  At my kids' well checks, the Dr. said, "Did she have reflux as a baby?  I think she still has reflux.  Here, let me give you a prescription for prevacid."  Treating the symptoms.  When I inquired about the dark circles under their eyes he said it was most likely a food allergy, but "we don't usually do anything about it if that's the only symptom."  Okay, so ignore the fact that a body is reacting to a food, since it's (at the present time) not bugging them too much.  Makes no sense.  That could explain why everything else is going up, too.

In Jason's and my immediate families (parents and siblings alone) we have:

Autism
Type 1 Diabetes
Asthma
Allergies
MS
Lupus
Thyroid malfunction
Breast Cancer (caught in pre-cancer stage)

What else?  I can't remember.  But all of them are auto-immune, and all of them are drastically going up each year in this country.  Interesting.  So I don't really feel like ignoring symptoms, or treating symptoms, because it's probably contributing to increasing rates of everything else.  Why are food allergies out of control these days?  Makes no sense.  MAKES NO SENSE, FDA, DO YOU HEAR ME?

So now what?  I have 2 months.  Two months until the baby is here.  Oh, and we are probably buying a lot and building a house in a couple weeks.  And I have so much to get ready for the actual birth (I'll tell you later). I can't change a diet in 2 months.  Do I need to make sourdough bread, drink raw milk, ferment my veggies?  That takes time and work.  I wish I had no other responsibilities than figuring this stuff out.  Maybe herbals will help (I've been reading a lot about that, too for this problem).  But I realize this is the bottom of a huge funnel of possibilities.

And anyone who has a crappy diet and has angel babies, I am totally jealous of you, and probably resentful, too.  But I at least hope you appreciate it.  You must have good genes. 

Mom:  Do you know why babies are so small?
Levi: No.
Mom: So they can fit in their mommy's tummy.
Levi:  Couldn't Heavenly father just make babies in the dirt, and we could go digging for babies?

Halloween

I was going for the homemade look this year - not the find a pattern and sew something elaborate homemade, but the throw-together homemade.  Well, these were anything but thrown together.  It took so much work, and I think I was a big grump the whole week leading up to Halloween (why not be honest?). So many trips to the thrift store, the consignment shop, the fabric store.    My mom made Dana's skirt, and I did all the easy stuff like hot gluing foam circles on Levi's pants.  But I LOVED how they turned out.  Looks simple, right? 

We passed out Oriental Trading Co. toys instead of candy.  But my kids still got plenty of junk.  Dana's pretty strong-willed and I usually let her do whatever she wants.  While trick or treating at Jason's work she ate a full-sized Twix, and that was probably half of what she ate that hour.  She'd scream if I told her no (I know, I'm creating a monster).  So I just let her stuff her face.  I figured the candy she ate there was probably, weight-wise, the same as me eating 10 full-sized candy bars.  On the way home in the car she crashed (and she NEVER takes a second nap anymore).  We were a little afraid she was in a sugar coma.  But she woke up.  Since Halloween is over, I pooled the kids' candy, put the chocolatey stuff in some cookie-dough that I froze for future FHE treats, took all the colorful stuff and am saving it for gingerbread houses, and now there is a manageable amount of candy left.  Phew.  Why do we do this to ourselves/our kids anyway?  I don't know any mom that's excited about the amount of candy at Halloween, and somehow we all feel obligated to buy it.  Weird.  I do love Halloween, though. 

Update

I've been feeling especially busy lately, so I'm going to do a lame post with no pictures.  But since it's been 2 1/2 months since I've posted at all, I thought I should.

Baby:
We had our ultrasound, and did something unusual - Jason found out the gender, and I didn't.  Weird, I know, but it made both of us happy.  I just told him he has to act equally interested when we discuss both sets of names, so he doesn't spoil the surprise for me.  I found out the gender on both of my other kids, but this time I thought would be fun to have a surprise, since there's nothing much more I really need, since I have one of each.  It would never have worked to have me find out and not him.  I'm a terrible secret keeper (really, don't tell me secrets), and he's a great one.

Marriage:
Until 2 months ago, we'd never even been a night w/o kids since being parents.  Then my MIL took the kids for a grandma's night out.  On our anniversary, we got another night alone with kids at my parent's house, and then we took a trip to San Francisco for our anniversary (the big 5 years), which was 2 nights.  The kids did great.  I really missed them.  I'd see parents with small children and wish I had mine.  It was really fun, though, and good for us.  I'm weird, though.  I like small breaks - grocery shopping alone, getting something done, and date nights with Jason - but on the whole, I really don't feel like I NEED vacations w/o my kids.  But it was fun and nice.  The highlight was seeing Wicked.  And in case you didn't know, vacationing is expensive.  Those of you who have parents with condo-shares and second houses for you to vacation to, I hope you appreciate it!  :) (seems like I have a lot of friends with those privileges, so I'm just a little jealous). 

Kids:
Probably the best thing we ever did was put the kids in the same room to sleep.  Danes had been in the laundry room until about 4 months ago.  They are both sleeping so much better.  Sometimes the simplest option is the best, though I'm pretty sure my sleep book assured me kids needed their own sleeping space...I'm really questioning advice from books like that.  

House:
Nothing new.  Well, maybe, but we won't know for a little while.  It's hard to get excited at this point, because our house-hunt has been going on for so long I keep thinking it'll never work out.  And in case you are wondering, yes, we qualify for a loan :)  We are just being a little picky for our price range, I think.  

Pictures

I know I shouldn't cover up my announcement from the last post so soon, but that ugly clothes boxes picture was bugging me.

Speaking of pictures, ugly or not, I read a great idea a while back on a blog. The idea is to take a picture of your whole family once a month and write a little bit about that month. I haven't done that exactly. I don't write about each month, and I don't necessarily take one each month. But it did get me thinking about pictures of my whole family. Most of my pictures are of the kids - alone, together, with one parent. But we hardly ever got around to taking one of the whole family (besides "family picture time"). So we ordered this tiny tripod that fits in our camera case, and voila, we can take family pictures wherever.

Easter Morning (actually the day before Easter).  This one is a little bit sad because no kidding we should take a family picture on Easter morning.  But I don't think we ever had before.  If you don't have Easter morning pictures of your family, either, maybe this is a good goal for you, too. ;)

In front of our house.  I love these kind of pictures.  Everyone needs a picture in front of their house.  We've lived in so many places, and I hardly remember what any of them looked like - not that you can really tell from this picture what it looks like.  Maybe we'll try again later.

Camping.  Most of our family pictures are while camping or hiking.  

This is my all-time favorite family picture.  It was taken last year, before I had this picture goal, by my friend Courtney, who sat behind us as we watched fireworks (on the beach - will never beat that 4th of July).  I didn't even know she took the picture, but I was so happy when she gave it to me.  

At the pool.  

So I was thinking about the family pictures as we were swimming tonight, and I wished I could do something more creative/artistic with them.  Someday, I will learn to use my camera.  But in the meantime, (since I have a hard time even getting dinner made on time), I'll just try something new every now and then.  I watched our reflection in Jason's glasses, and decided that was a fun way to capture my whole family. 

I love this picture goal.  It's fun and worthwhile.  My only complaint is that our camera only has a tripod hole on the bottom, so I can only take tripod pictures landscape.  Do they make tripod holes on the sides of cameras?