Madison & Daniel’s Unnecesareans

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I got pregnant with my daughter when I was 18. I knew a little bit about pregnancy from being the oldest of eight kids, but I really didn’t know as much as I should have. To me, having a baby was something people did everyday. It wasn’t something to worry about, let alone be anxious about.

I had a relatively easy pregnancy with my daughter aside from lots of morning sickness. I had Group B Strep, and had some borderline diabetic issues and dehydration a couple times, but for the most part, life was simple.

I went to 41 weeks, and it was at that point I asked my doctor about induction. I was “informed” about the risks associated with it, but I really don’t feel that I was made to understand the realness of those risks. I really regret the decision to induce.

Absolutely nothing happened, which isn’t surprising considering I was 0cm dilated and 0% effaced. I didn’t know that a bishop score should be done before an induction…

Needless to say, a cesarean was inevitable. I was terrified and the experience traumatized me. I suffered from severe post partum depression and had issues caring for and bonding with my baby.

I genuinely believe, had I been better informed, and better educated, and not rushed because I was “overdue” that I would not have had a cesarean.

I went into my second pregnancy more prepared than I had my first. I really wanted to do a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) but my faith in myself and my body waivered often. Still, I tried.

I had very little issues with my son’s pregnancy. I didn’t get sick at all, just felt nauseous in the beginning, and had the occasional headache. I had group B strep again, but out of the two pregnancies, this was the easier of the two.

I ended up travelling to Anchorage 4 days before my due date because my obstetrician was going on vacation, and I couldn’t trust the two or three other obstetricians at my hospital to let me try for a VBAC.

I was transferred to a doctor in Anchorage, and just hung around in a hotel until I was nine days overdue. I was persuaded into doing a “light induction” even though I knew that I shouldn’t use any induction drugs since I had a priod cesarean. I ended up having my waters broke for me too.

I remember I was frustrated and angry because I wanted to get up and move around but the nurses wouldn’t let me and kept telling me I needed to lay down because of the monitors. After 12 hours of hard labor, I ended up with “Fetal distress” again and was given a cesarean.

Unfortunately, I did not know until after the delivery that moving around during labor can decrease “fetal distress” and that electronic fetal monitoring has not been shown to improve outcomes in labor or reduce mortality rates.

So, I was forced to lay in bed, when I could have been moving around, for the sake of monitors that did nothing but let us know that the baby’s heart is beating, and yes, I’m contracting.

But I could have told them that.

Big News!

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So, everyone… I wanted to update and let you know what’s going on with us and on our end…

We’re having another baby!

So, if the title wasn’t clear enough, the big news is, we’re having another baby. It’s really exciting. We weren’t planning for another baby until later this year (we were thinking somewhere between early and late winter) but obviously the universe had other plans in store for us.

I kind of had a feeling from the get-go and I was obsessively taking tests and they kept being negative and I gave up thinking “If it hasn’t shown up by now, then I’m not pregnant…” So I gave up and was content with waiting until later this winter…

I ran out to the car to get something for one of the kids, and I saw a couple of my tests out there (I hid them in the car because Dan was calling me crazy for buying more…) and I figured… I have a couple more. Why not? If it’s negative then I know for sure.

I take the test and I can see the faintest of lines….. So, I asked my friend Maryah if she could see it and sure enough she could… And as more time went by the line got darker.. and darker.

It’s way darker than in that picture now, but regardless, there’s a line.

I went into the doctor today and had my pregnancy confirmed. I was so excited. I still hadn’t told Dan and everyone in the office was so excited for me. The same thing happened there though, a light line that turned pretty dark after a bit. Which, for me, is typical. It was the same way with Maddi and Danny.

I came home, and tried to act normal because I was planning on surprising Dan… But when I walked in the door, Dan was cooking/putting dishes away and smirking at me. I asked him what and he said nothing… Then I asked again… Maryah yelled from the living room “He knows…” And I said “HOW?” She laughed and said she didn’t tell him anything, and Dan goes “How do I know what, Sammi? That you’re pregnant?” He was laughing and smirking the whole time…

Turns out he was snooping arounds on my baby sites and he even made an account and said he was going to respond to my question asking for advice on how to surprise my husband with the news!!

The lazy, breastfeeding, mommy-machine.

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So, I’m really BAD about updating lately. I guess it’s mostly because I just feel so darn lazy lately. I’m keeping up with school, and that’s about it. I guess we all go through these little funks at one point or another. Just my turn I suppose.

Things are going well. Danny is crawling like crazy. He’s acting kind of weird though, I guess it’s more normal that weird… But still. He FREAKS out like the world is about to end if I put him down. Heck, if I even grab underneath his armpits like I *might* put him down, he freaks out. He just wants held, ALL the time. And it’s just crazy to me! I can’t be holding a baby 24/7! My carriers have come in handy though, because I can pop him in there and just wear him while I do things, and he’s happy as a clam. It just gets annoying when he starts grabbing at my face… He’s got sharp little finger nails and he rips my lips open when he grabs them. I don’t like that.

Maddi is starting to talk more, which is cool, but sometimes annoying. Now that she’s figured out she can say things to get things, she automatically assumes that if she says it, then she’ll get it. Hah! I think not. No, Maddi. You can’t have soda, cookies, candy and ice cream for breakfast.

We also got Maddi’s big girl bed set up. My mom got it at the dump… But it was in great condition and was in the set aside pile… It just needed a couple of the rods bent back into shape. My grandpa did that, and now its great. We didn’t set it up for awhile, and just left it outside, but now its up. We still have the crib set up next to it, just to remind her that if she gets up out of bed and throws a fit, then she gets to sleep in the crib… Sometimes that reminder works, sometimes it dosen’t.

I started up a new website, all about breastfeeding and breast milk donation! If you’re a nursing mom or know a nursing mom, you should check it out. http://www.breastmilkdonation.com we’re having a breast pump giveaway, and there’s even a section on the site for free baby feeding supplies… Things like formula, bottles, nursing pads, etc.

I still have baby fever. Which I’m really bummed about. I don’t want another baby right now. The plan was when Danny was around two years old, but then we did our taxes and we got this home purchase credit, but in order to keep it, we have to stay in our home for three years… And Dan dosen’t want another baby until we’re out of this home and in a bigger one… Meaning, Danny will be around 3 1/2 before I get to have another baby. I really didn’t want to wait that long. It feels like forever from now!

Anyways, that’s about all on my end.

Staph, Strep, Weight, Adoption, Conception, Car, Debt, Oh my.

Filed Under Breastfeeding, Danny, Family, Health, Maddi, money, pregnancy | Leave a Comment

I’ve been kind of lazy about updating lately. Sorry. My bad.

Things are going better on this end. Danny is feeling MUCH better, which I am super thankful for. I was so worried about him. Turns out he had the staph AND a strep infection at the same time. Definitely not cool. I’m just glad he’s okay.

On a lighter note, my little guy has a tooth! It’s just a teensy weensy tiny little thing, but it’s still a tooth. You can’t really see it, because it’s just the tip, and its barely out of the gum, but its there! It’s exciting but it makes me sad at the same time. He’s almost nine months old. It’s about time he got some teethers going!

Maddi is speaking much better. She still has issues pronouncing things, and trying to use words (she prefers to whine and cry… which she doesn’t get away with anymore). She just has to stop being lazy. She dosen’t like using words, and it’s pretty obvious she’d rather just grunt and get what she wants… But that doesn’t float anymore, not that it did before, but we’ve become much more strict about the no-whining-and-grunting-policy.

I’m struggling with my weight again. Don’t really know what else to say on that subject. Except that I’m struggling and I feel like I’m huge. Regardless of what everyone says and what my husband thinks. I know I’m not fat, in my logical mind. But I also know everyone’s lying when they say I’m not fat. I hate these feelings. But I knew they’d be back eventually, and quite frankly, I’m tired of fighting it. I knew that as soon as danny needed me less for nourishment, that this is what would happen.

On a much happier note, Dan was working our taxes… and I’m freaking excited. We’re going to get enough back to pay off ALL of our debt, AND have some left over. Which is awesome. I’m excited. I can’t wait. We’ll be able to pay off EVERYTHING (except the house). So this means, credit cards, collections, and our car! I’m so flipping excited. This is going to make our lives MUCH easier. Maybe we can even start building up a savings.

On top of that, I’m thinking I might adopt our next child. I’ve been putting a great deal of thought into it. I haven’t decided for sure yet, but I’m thinking I will. I’d really like to. I may, I may not. We may decide to try for our own, or adopt. I know we’ll adopt eventually, but we may or may not adopt our next child. It depends on how much we’ve saved up, and whether we’re in a bigger house, or what not.

Anyways, that’s my blurb.

What being a teenage mother has taught me.

Filed Under Breastfeeding, Contemplative, Danny, Family, Health, Love, Maddi, pregnancy | 6 Comments

What amazes me, is how often I see girls, only fifteen, sixteen or seventeen years old who want to have babies. I’m not talking want, in a one-day-in-the-future-tense, but want as in now, and soon. And just as often, I see girls the same age, who are already pregnant and they may think they know enough about babies through babysitting, or helping with siblings, but really, they have no idea what its like.

Everyone says that pregnancy is the easy part, having the baby is the tough part, but it’s not. Pregnancy is just as difficult. I see pregnant girls, even ones in their 20′s and 30′s, slamming red bull like it’s water, and eating tuna and deli meat like it’s going out of style! Not to mention poping ibuprofin everytime they get an ache or pain. All of which can be detrimental towards the baby’s health.

These girls don’t know that having an epidural can affect your baby’s ability to breathe, or even to breastfeed after birth. They don’t know that having an epidural increases your chance of a cesarean section. They don’t know that getting induced nearly doubles your chances of a cesarean section. They think that its “safe” for the baby to be born at 37 weeks, and by golly, they want that baby out ASAP! They don’t know that even at 37 weeks, that poor little baby could be born with premature lungs and suffer immensely because they didn’t get those last few weeks in utero to help their brain and lung development. They don’t know that, in the majority of cases, it’s best to let the baby decide when it’s ready to meet the world.

I then see these same women and girls, a few months after having had their babies, popping a bottle of formula into the poor baby’s mouth, claiming they “couldn’t” breastfeed. When in reality, only 2% of women cannot physically breastfeed. So, why are almost all of these girls bottlefeeding? My only attempt at a guess is that they were misinformed. Uneducated about the subject. Sure, you see breastfeeding PSA’s on television, and the WIC office tries to encourage breastfeeding, but we need to provide more in depth education on breastfeeding. So many babies end up suffering because of this. Babies were meant to drink human milk! So, why are mothers so surprised when their babies have reactions to formula? I’ve had women look at me shocked when I tell them my son hardly ever spits up. I can count on one hand how many times he’s spit up on me in his six months of life. And it’s no wonder, because breastfed babies spit up less.

I see these girls, who before or during the pregnancy had a boyfriend or fiancee around, but as soon as that baby entered the picture, the father of that child flew the coop. Or even worse, they ditched the girl as soon as she found out she was pregnant. Often times, these same guys refuse to pay child suport, and in most of the cases I’ve seen, don’t even spend time with their child. Let alone, help care for its daily needs. The girl thought she was in love. She thought it was forever, but sadly, in most cases of teenage pregnancy, forever really means “until I get tired of it.”

I got lucky. I really did. And the funny part is, I wasn’t expecting to get lucky. I thought I’d be raising my baby alone. The pregnancy was unintended, as 80% of teenage pregnancies are. I never for a second thought he would actually marry me. After all, 8 out of 10 fathers of teenage girl’s babies DON’T marry them. When he proposed, I was hesitant. And even though we got married, it wasn’t easy. We almost didn’t make it through our first year of marriage. But, he loved our baby and was incredibly devoted to her. Again, something that isn’t very common among the men involved in teenage pregnancies. I graduated high school a few months after she was born. That’s something only 1 in 4 teenage mothers actually do. I’m in college, and by the end of summer, I should have an associate’s degree. That’s something that only 1.5% of teenage mothers accomplish by age 30. And, like 80% of teenage mothers, I had a second baby within two years of the birth of my first baby. But, unlike 80% of teen mothers, I have never been on welfare.

Hows that for statistics?

I got lucky in a lot of areas. I have a lot more support than most teenage mothers do. My husband works and provides for us, so I don’t have to. I can spend my time with my children instead of paying a daycare to raise them. I might not be a good story to scare girls away from getting pregnant, but even with all of my “lucky” things, it’s still hard. There are days I don’t want to do anything, but I have to.

When I’m sick, and puking, I still have to manage to comfort my kids who, most likely, are sick and puking too.

When I’m tired, and have been operating on only 3 or 4 hours of sleep, I still have to do my homework. And anytime I consider just saying “forget it all.” and taking an F, I get these intense pangs of guilt. What kind of mother am I if I don’t do everything possible to take care of my kids and give them the best? That includes educating myself, so that by the time they’re old enough to remember, they’ll never know we struggled.

When I have money, I can’t spend it on myself. Especially when there’s food to buy, clothes to buy, bills to pay.

I have to watch my diet, and avoid any and all dairy or my son will stay up all night with horrible gas, and I won’t get any sleep at all.

I can’t let the laundry go a day, because we use cloth diapers. If you would have asked me two years ago, I would have never even considered using cloth diapers, but when you’re forking out $250 dollars a month (that you need for food) just on diapers and wipes, it starts to be worth it…Regardless of how gross it is. Not to mention, my son dosen’t get hardly any rashes when we use cloth vs. disposable diapers.

I have to care for my children, even when I’m in pain. I had my apendix out, and the day after I got home from the hospital, I had to forego the pain meds I really needed, in order to take care of my children and make sure they were well cared for.

I had to have two medically necessary cesarean sections. The first one, because it would have killed both of us if I went into labor with her, the second because my son’s heartrate was erratic. Because of that cesarean, my ability to have many more kids in the future, is limited, unless I can successfully have a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) with my next child.

And these are just the physical tolls having children takes on you. The emotional tolls are even greater… but usually only on mothers who care.

It’s hard not being able to give your child everything. When you have your baby, you feel this overwhelming sense of love. Sure, before you have them, you know you love them, you know they’re important, but I don’t think it really hits you until they take their first breath and you realize this perfect little person is completely reliant on you. You are everything to them. It breaks my heart when I know there’s things I can’t give my kids, or things I wish I could.

I may not be perfect, but I do my best. And for now, that’s all that counts.

Jacey

Filed Under Contemplative, Health, pregnancy | 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking about my baby a lot.
The one I lost.
Jacey.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t work through it after it happened. I dont know. I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately though.

I wish I could have met her.

My angel baby…

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I found a site. It made me cry my eyes out. I don’t even know how I found it. I just stumbled on it.

http://www.innocents.com

There’s a shrine for the unborn babies who have passed away. A book of life. They inscribe your baby’s name into it for you and send you a certificate of life for your baby.

I couldn’t stop crying.

Jacey is in that book now.

It still hurts…

Filed Under Contemplative, Danny, Family, Love, pregnancy | 2 Comments

Today kind of sucks.

I’m trying not to let it get to me, but today is one year since I lost my baby. It’s really hard to not get upset. I know that I wasn’t that far along… But it still hurts. It makes me really sad and I have a hard time with it.

I’m trying to be positive and think about the things that happened positively… Like that I became even more resolved to fix things with my husband (at the time we were having problems) and I got pregnant with Danny shortly after… And if I hadn’t had the miscarriage, I wouldn’t have had him… I try to think of those things to keep me from being sad…

But it still hurts.

:’(

Adjusting, Bills, Dr. L & Random Ramblings…

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So, I’m settling back into the swing of things. It’s different having two, versus having one, but I’m trying to take it one day at a time. Sometimes it’s really tough, especially when I’m carrying Danny, and Maddi wants to try running off, or won’t hold my hand (this is especially troublesome in stores and parking lots…) and she tries to test my patience… It’s mostly Maddi that’s giving me trouble and wearing me out right now…

On a lighter note, I had a bill past due (like WAY past due) for counseling stuff from over a year ago (when Dan and I were seperated… I got VERY depressed about it…) and they sent me a letter with an income worksheet because they merged with a sliding payment scale clinic, so they follow the sliding pay scale now too. I’m hoping that this means I will get the sliding pay scale rate because if that’s the case, then I only have to pay $20, which would be awesome, considering I owe $450…. So hopefully that IS what it means! I really hope so.

I worked on cleaning mine and Dan’s room. It’s a disaster zone, but considering how I really haven’t felt well and been up to the whole moving-around-easily thing… It was pretty easy for it to get that way. Dan works a lot (he went back to work last Thursday…) and with me not feeling well and having to chase Maddi and take care of Danny, it happens. I feel pretty lame though, because what would normally only take me an hour to do cleaning wise, took me nearly four hours because of how tired I’d get and how many sit-down-for-five-minute-breaks I had to take. It’s all part of healing and recovering though… My room isn’t completely clean, however, I did make progress. Got the suitcase from Anchorage taken care of, a few boxes gone through and emptied out, laundry started, sheets washed, and we can actually see the floor now! I’m sure Dan will be happy that I worked on it. He seems really stressed lately, and being stressed sucks, but it sucks even worse when you have a stressful day and you come home to a messy place and lots of things you know you need to be doing but don’t have the energy to do.

I feel really clingy lately. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the post-partum. I feel super clingy to Dan and I don’t know why. I get all sad when he has to go to work, and I miss him while he’s gone… And I just find myself wanting to spend more time with him, even if I really don’t have anything for us to do planned.

I have my two week appointment, and Danny’s two weeks appointment tomorrow. Mine is at 1pm and his is at 2pm, so provided nothing goes wrong at mine, then I’ll make it to his easily. The two buildings are super close together, maybe only three or four minutes apart. Just cross your fingers and hope that nothing goes wrong at my appointment. I’m kind of worried it will. (TMI WARNING) I stopped bleeding at all for almost four days, and then I started bleeding a LOT of dark, but bright red blood. Not enough to fill a pad in an hour, like it says on the warning signs list, but enough that it kind of alarms me. And since that started happening, I’ve been getting really dizzy and my eyes kind of cloud over when I stand up. So, I’m wondering if the two are related? I’m going to ask Dr. B tomorrow.

Speaking of Doctors, I LOVED my doctor in Anchorage, Dr. L. I’m really bummed out that I don’t get to see him again. He was awesome. He seemed to really care about what he was doing, and his patients. It meant a lot to me that he was so involved and so supportive of my attempt at a VBAC. He seemed like he was trying just as hard as I was to make the VBAC work. I’m usually incredibly picky and incredibly skeptical of most doctors, but Dr. L was amazing. I’m going to write him a letter, and send him some pictures of Danny. I’d love to keep in touch with him. I know it sounds silly, but when I become a doctor (one day…), I hope I can treat my patients, and find that care and concern within myself for my patients that Dr. L did for me. I hope I’m able to connect with my patients on that level and do my best to treat them and keep them healthy, at the same time as doing my best to help them achieve any goals they may have (like a VBAC). Dr. L really seemed like he felt bad that I couldn’t have the VBAC, but he knew the baby wasn’t tolerating it and it wouldn’t be safe. I think he knew how much I wanted one… I almost think he was more upset than I was… But I’m glad I tried, and I’m glad he genuinely supported my decision to try.

Anyways, that’s enough rambling for today.