The Humorous Side of Birth

Since I'd already posted a pregnancy update for the link-up, I decided to do a seperate post for the discussion question this week. Thought it would be fun to share some of the more light-hearted things from labor and delivery to help us remember it isn't all about pain. (okay, so at the time it probably is if you're going natural but you can look back and remember how funny it was later anyway! haha)

Before I get started let me just say that I will be 39 weeks tomorrow, still having daily contractions, but NO baby yet! This little boy must have decided he just needed to stay put awhile longer. I'm trying to decide if I want to be just as stubborn in waiting him out or maybe try some more natural ways to get things going when I see the midwife? I'll be updating on that again after the checkup tomorrow I guess.

Now for the fun stuff:

1rst birth: This was an inducement (yes, I was young and naive about all that....whole 'nother story) so I had to be hooked up to all kinds of moniters. I remember Blake and my dad getting a kick out of watching the contraction moniter and telling me I was having one before I got my epidural. As if I didn't already know! haha
After they upped the pitocin and I did end up with the pain meds, I tried telling them I was super sensitive to everything and wouldn't need much. They turned the epidural up high anyway so that when the doctor came in for me to push I was extra numb and couldn't feel a thing or even move any part of my lower body. After telling me to put my feet in the stirrups and me not being able to the nurses finally helped get them up there. They evidently didn't take me seriously about having no control over anything though because they promptly let go only to have both legs fall over by themselves. They didn't even look real! lol I remember thinking that was the funniest thing ever to see my legs doing stuff but not being able to feel it or do anything about it. Blake and I still laugh about that all these years later. :-)

2nd birth: With this one we gave birth with a midwife at a birthing house. I had planned on getting in the hot tub they had there to help manage the pain but hadn't given any thought to actually having the baby in the water. Once I got in (I was already a 7) though it evidently relaxed me enough that I dialated quickly to a 10 and started feeling like I needed to push. We decided to just do it in the water rather than me trying to climb out in so much pain, but I was still unsure about it since I hadn't really done any research. In the middle of me pushing her out I looked down and saw her face in the water (she was born "sunny side up"!) and was like, Is she going to be okay like that?! Looking back it was such a silly question since obviously the midwife wouldn't have allowed it if the baby was laying there drowning. Ha! It's crazy how our minds can work in the middle of something like that though. After she came out on the next push and we lifted her up from the water she immediately started peeing everywhere! She loves hearing that story now and it's definitely something I can look back on and laugh about....since I'm not in so much pain anymore. lol

3rd birth: It's a little more challening to find something funny about this one since it was kinda chaotic with us ending up in the hospital rather than doing a homebirth as planned. I do remember laying there strapped to the moniter and begging to be checked to see how far along I was or them just take it off for a few minutes to give me a break because it was so tight during contractions. The nurse of course said no and kept right on asking her million silly questions that had nothing to do with labor! She then stood up and reached over to mess with the straps on my stomach right when I was having a painful contraction....I pushed her hand away and said, don't touch me! haha Totally unlike me really but turns out I was at a 10 and ready to push so was just feeling all those emotions that go along with that. Not to mention that no one would listen to me! Looking back I was able to laugh about telling her off like that. lol
The other thing we thought was funny later is how sore my throat was. I didn't realize how much I hollered while pushing until I had such a scratchy, hoarse voice. Just goes to show how focused I was on the job and not my reaction to the pain I guess. :-)

Well, there's my {hopefully} more humorous side of labor and birth! I can't wait to read some of the others on the link-up. Be sure to click here to see the rest of the updates and
stories. And if you don't have a blog or do the link-up, then feel free to leave a funny birth story in the comments. I'd love to hear it!

Baby Bloopers!

This post will probably be a little scattered and probably more than a little silly so just consider yourself forewarned! :)

Adjusting to life with a newborn after so long has been quite a pain, ahem, I mean an adventure these past few weeks. Lack of sleep, stress over her being sick and requiring constant care, and just overall changes have made things pretty crazy around here at times. (to be honest, that's putting it a little mildly...but I digress) Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah, craziness....here's just a few little things that have happened or been said lately that I thought was funny. Figured I would share so you all could get a laugh too! Cause sometimes when life is rough you might as well just laugh instead of cry, right?! :)

You know the saying, "don't cry over spilt milk"? (actually, sometimes that reaction is totally appropiate in my opinion, especially when you're paying $9 a can for it!) But when you try pouring it into a bottle without a liner in it and it goes everywhere, it really is more funny than sad I have to admit. I mean, who would do something like that anyway? lol Or maybe when for no apparent reason you pick up the jar and it drops out of your hand to run all over the cabinets and into the drawers and you stand there thinking how in the world did that just happen? I don't think I've mentioned how clumsy I got with this last pregnancy(which I read is perfectly normal, but I think is debatable depending on what you consider normal!). Well, unfortunately the clumsiness has stayed with me and doesn't look like it's gonna get better anytime soon. Which is probably why I managed to somehow slam the cabinet door extremely loud the other day....right after we had commented on the fact that Darcey had just fallen asleep in her swing for the first time ever! Can anyone say frustrating?! (and in case you wondered, yes, she did wake up. immediately. crying.) I think that's enough about my awful lack of gracefulness slight clumsiness for now though. I'm making myself upset all over again. lol

As for funny things that the kids have said here's a couple that come to mind at the moment. Dathan told me a couple weeks ago that my stomach was so much smaller since I'd had Darcey. Yeah, I was really encouraged...until he continued with saying that now I only look maybe 2 or 3 months pregnant! I did try to have a heart to heart about considering what you say and if it might hurt someone's feelings(not for myself but in case he did it to someone else!) but I have to admit it was more than a little comical cause he was just so cute and honest. I couldn't help but laugh and just agree since it was true anyway. haha
Delancey's funniest thing was when she told mom about how we were getting ready to go somewhere one day and that Darcey had been so good, but then before we could leave 'she started to scream bloody murder!'. Then she thought about it for a second and said, "No, it was worse than bloody murder!" lol There's nothing like the things kids say sometimes. It's priceless! :)

Last but not least is the funniest thing by far that has happened since Darcey was born. (well, I think so anyway... Blake might not fully agree. haha) We had finally gotten to where we were attempting to lay Darcey down propped up on pillows between us some at night a few weeks ago. It was still very challenging to get her to sleep and her actually stay that way for very long though so sometimes I would bounce the bed a little after I laid her on it to hopefully keep her settled. This particular night she was pretty fussy and I had been up with her for awhile before trying to lay her down. Blake was already in bed and had fallen asleep sometime before.(I should probably note at this point that he has been notorious for doing things in his sleep ever since we've been married...starting with on our honeymoon...which is a story for another day) So anyway as I started to bounce on the bed he jumps up, pushes away the sleep mask he had on, and with a rather wild look started to run to...well, somewhere I guess. I'm still desperately trying to keep Darcey asleep but not let him go running off all crazy so I start whisper yelling(ya'll know what that is, right?)at him to lay back down. Surprisingly enough he actually stopped and listened long enough to sit back on the bed and stare kinda blankly at me, albeit still with a rather panicked expression on his face. I quietly ask him what he was doing and he whispers back,"Getting out of bed!". And when I said why he looked at me like I was crazy and said,"Cause it was shaking!" You would have thought there was an earthquake or something the way he sounded. I had to really get a grip on myself to not laugh out loud and wake up Darcey myself at this point. lol I finally was able to reply long enough to tell him that I knew it was because I was the one doing it! haha He sat there for another minute and then evidently decided that things were safe enough so he could lay back down. After which he was immediately back asleep of course. And the funniest part?! He doesn't remember one little thing about it..... :-)

Okay, so there's some of the insanely crazy stuff that's been going on at our house lately. Hope you all got a kick out of reading it, if you managed to make it to the end of this impossibly long post that is!

Natural Ways To Induce Labor (or not)

For those of you who might be wondering (and I'm sure there's alot of that going on at this point. lol) I figured it would be good to give a quick rundown of the things I've tried so far to help this baby along when it comes to being born. Now obviously none of them have actually worked for me so I'm still not sure how valid the ideas really are, but they should be interesting reading regardless, right? And just maybe if you happen to be 8 er, make that 9 days over your due date one of them just might work for you! :-)
So here goes the list......

1. walking (of course, that one's probably a given to most)
2. taking herbs (which resulted in maybe a slight increase in contractions, but mostly made me nauseated I think)
3. rubbing various acupressure points (same as the herbs, minus the nausea...although I think these really do work well for some people)
4. more walking (which so far has still only proven to cause my feet to swell and make me tired and sore)
5. eating the core of a pineapple (now this one is probably by far the most unusual I've tried this time, but it actually is supposed to help move things along...for me it just seemed to be really tough to eat and I spent awhile picking pieces of it after my teeth, which I guess at least managed to get my mind off of other things for the moment. lol)
6. real acupuncture (yep, the actual needles...by a professional of course. now seriously I would've thought this one would work hands down, but no other than a few stronger contractions since having it done yesterday I really can't tell much difference)
7. strange positions (I'm sure that looks funny to read, but it's really just me trying different poses to try and help her turn in a good way to be born. these seem to just be uncomfortable for me and not really working for her. hmmmm, maybe that's a good sign I should just not do them!)
8. even more walking (okay, so I'm sure this really is doing more than what I realize, but I'm still not totally sure if it's a good or bad thing yet. it seems to cause progress in some ways but sometimes stop it in others so the verdict is still out as to whether it's all actually worth it.)

So there's my tried (and, um, unfortunately failed) methods of not self-inducing labor. I hope you all got at least some enjoyment out of it, cause so far I sure haven't! lol

All kidding aside though, I had an ultrasound yesterday and Darcey looks great. Everything looked and sounded fine and there's plenty of fluid. Honestly it just seemed like she should be coming anytime, which I'm sure is true that she will be. And considering that none of the above things have worked in causing her to be born by now then there is obviously a good reason why she hasn't been. One which I will probably never know of course, but it still helps to tell myself that at this point. haha I'm really just trying to trust that God knows best and that as long as things turn out okay the when she's born doesn't really matter much. Although I have to admit that in my humanness(don't think that's actually a word)it's sometimes hard not to worry and fret over things going wrong or question if the reason she isn't coming is a bad one....but I'm not the only one that does stuff like that, right? Please just continue to pray that I'll have peace about it all and that whenever something does happen that things will go smoothly and safely for us both. I really can't wait for her to get here so I can finally write a post about that! :-) Until next time.....