I am one of the most indecisive people in the world...a trait which makes my husband completely nuts. I will agonize over what to order from a menu and then finally make my order and the second the waiter walks away I will inevitably say, "DOH! I should've picked the other one." Rob hates it.
However once I make a decision about something and am satisfied with it I rarely alter my course because I dread making a new decision. So you can only imagine my dismay that my Midwife Stephanie retired after Max's birth. Can you think of anything that I would have a stronger opinion on than birth unless it was who will attend MY birth?
This is not a first for me. An OB/GYN delivered Caleb at Mesa Lutheran Hospital with an epidural and the list of typical medical interventions. It was a very dissatisfying experience for me and left me with a case of PPD and horrible memories which haunted me for two years until I replaced them with amazing memories of Nathaniel's beautiful planned homebirth with CPM (Certified Professional Midwife) Claudine Calligan.
When it was over; as beautiful as it was; I ended up making a list of "things I'd do differently": at which point Rob dubbed me a "birth perfectionist". He may be right about that but regardless, I remembered my list when I gave birth to Hayden in the tiny master bedroom of our first townhouse 18 months later. We were fortunate to be able to use the same Midwife.
After Hayden's birth I thought I kind of had things down and my "do differently list" was shorter. So two years later pregnant with Max---plan in hand---I tried to contact Claudine only to be heartbroken to find out she had retired! What? How could she do that without consulting me?
Years before I had met an awesome midwife named Stephanie Pennick but happenstance had kept us from meeting again. I took a chance called her up and she was available for a late September birth. She was a wonderful, hands off, quiet, background presence at Max's birth. She was a true guardian of the process while letting our family quietly experience a mother birthing her baby into the hands of his father. This birth was finally the perfection I had been trying to achieve with the others and Stephanie was a huge contributor to that perfection.
I can't tell you how sad I am to know she won't be a part of this next one. So now the search is on for that "perfect" replacement. It seems impossible to me that I'll be able to find someone who meets all my criteria (I'll admit they are high standards) but then I think back to how I thought I'd never love a midwife like I loved Claudine and look what happened...I found Stephanie.
Truth is: I always say, "Every woman is in love with her obstetrician because they feel like he GAVE her her baby." The same thing applies to midwives; when a person is party to something as life altering as birth, when they are present at that moment that a piece of your heart is torn from your body and will walk around outside of you for the rest of your life; you can't help but develop an unbreakable bond.
So...the search is on. Guess I'd better stop putting it off and find somebody.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
11-13 wk baby
This is about what our sweet pea looks like right now. It is about 3 inches long---about the size of a lemon. Between now and 16 weeks it will quadruple in size! It is drinking amniotic fluid, moving it's little arms and legs and possibly sucking its thumb (Awww!! Can you think of anything cuter than that thought?). It's wiggling about in it's little swimming pool which is about a quart of fluid...thank you...I DO in fact have an excuse for this gut that is overlapping my low rider jeans!
Speaking of the gut: While I'm not thrilled with how early I am showing (5th baby---6th pregnancy...give me a break) I have to say it's been a little fun being able to palpate my fundus (lay terms translation: feel the top of my uterus through my abdominal wall) this time. I have always been very heavy with my other pregnancies and never felt the fundus until it was well above my navel (20-25 weeks) before. Sometimes I just lay in my bed with my shirt up and poke at at the bump. Then I just stare at it waiting for it to do something. (Little inside giggle!) I absolutely adore it and the little life moving around inside of it...I can't wait until I can feel the baby moving...that is my FAVORITE part of pregnancy.
Baby Bellatrix or Baby Betelgeuse?
So as of tomorrow (Thurs. Jan. 21) I will be 13 weeks along. Our kids are so excited about the baby! (As are we) Originally we decided as a family that we were going to not find out the baby's gender thinking it would be neat to wait until the birth to see what we'd been baking all those months. The kids will all be there (at the birth) and they all decided it would be a fun surprise.
However as time has passed we have all gotten a little too eager to talk about names and maybe pick up a few baby items, after all shopping for baby and coming up with names are a big part of the fun of a pregnancy. Until we find out the gender (around 20 weeks which will be early March) the kids have come up with random names to call "it" since no one likes to say "it". A few they have come up with are Bellatrix and Betelgeuse (the two stars that make up the shoulders of the Orion constellation---my kids are weird---they are really into astronomy). They have also ocassionally called the baby various Greek names such as Aphrodite, Demeter and Haphaestus (thank you Percy Jackson). And finally of course what baby name list would be complete without contributions from J.K. Rowling? So naturally they've thrown Albus Severus into the mix. Oh and just to keep it interesting Max likes the name Pluto...as in Mickey Mouse's dog!
I found a gender analysis test online that can be taken as early as 10 weeks which has a 90% accuracy result in lab and 82% accuracy in "real life" use which allows for user error. If you have been on prescription progesterone supplementation (which I have) you have to wait for 10 days after last use or it will affect your results adversely. So, my last dose of progesterone is next Thurs. and 10 days later I'll let you know what the test says that I am 82% likely to be carrying!
For the record: Rob and I and Caleb and Nate have no preference. Hayden would like to have a sister (I'd like her to have one; all girls should have a sister...sistera are the BEST) but says she just "LOVES baby boys" so it would be okay to have a boy. Max says it IS a sister but he doesn't mind a brother...but "it's NOT a brother...it's a SISTER!" Nobody cares what the gender is...we are just happy to have a baby!
However as time has passed we have all gotten a little too eager to talk about names and maybe pick up a few baby items, after all shopping for baby and coming up with names are a big part of the fun of a pregnancy. Until we find out the gender (around 20 weeks which will be early March) the kids have come up with random names to call "it" since no one likes to say "it". A few they have come up with are Bellatrix and Betelgeuse (the two stars that make up the shoulders of the Orion constellation---my kids are weird---they are really into astronomy). They have also ocassionally called the baby various Greek names such as Aphrodite, Demeter and Haphaestus (thank you Percy Jackson). And finally of course what baby name list would be complete without contributions from J.K. Rowling? So naturally they've thrown Albus Severus into the mix. Oh and just to keep it interesting Max likes the name Pluto...as in Mickey Mouse's dog!
I found a gender analysis test online that can be taken as early as 10 weeks which has a 90% accuracy result in lab and 82% accuracy in "real life" use which allows for user error. If you have been on prescription progesterone supplementation (which I have) you have to wait for 10 days after last use or it will affect your results adversely. So, my last dose of progesterone is next Thurs. and 10 days later I'll let you know what the test says that I am 82% likely to be carrying!
For the record: Rob and I and Caleb and Nate have no preference. Hayden would like to have a sister (I'd like her to have one; all girls should have a sister...sistera are the BEST) but says she just "LOVES baby boys" so it would be okay to have a boy. Max says it IS a sister but he doesn't mind a brother...but "it's NOT a brother...it's a SISTER!" Nobody cares what the gender is...we are just happy to have a baby!
Drum Roll....
First things first: I can't think of any subject more deserving of the first post I put on here in months than the fact that we are expecting Halliday Baby #5 in July! Over the next few months I plan to chronicle the good the bad and the ugly about my pregnancy so I figure now is as good a time as any to post the "how it all came about" story:
This baby is a long time coming and such a blessing and answer to prayers for our family. We have been trying for a little over 2 1/2 years for this one. Go figure. For those who don't know, it took 5 years for us to get Caleb here but then after that we seemed to have the formula down. Nate, Hayden and Max came along boom boom boom...like a little step ladder so it came as a bit of a surprise to us that we didn't achieve pregnancy #5 with such ease.
2 years into trying we finally started seeing Dr. H. Randall Craig at The Fertility Treatment Center. We did the whole fertility workup and then they started us on a fairly aggressive regimen of fertility medications that included injections and oral medications and monthly IUIs (Intra Uterine Insemination). Each month we got our hopes up...each month it failed. It was very hard emotionally especially with all the hormones coursing through my blood! :)
On the third cycle of meds I actually developed ovarian cysts instead of viable follicles. That was devastating. I had to take medications to supress ovulation and it set us back about 6 weeks. As it turns out we had a very early miscarriage on the subsequent cycle. So early that we were unaware of the pregnancy until I was actually miscarrying (perhaps 5 gestational weeks which is actually maybe 3 weeks after conception). Again, it was devastating.
Finally on Nov. 5 we had our 3rd IUI and as they say, 3rd time is a charm...12 days later (I couldn't wait out the 14 days they suggested!) we tested and found out that we were expecting. Two days later on Nov. 18th we had an ultrasound and got to see our little blip on the screen with it's tiny heartbeat. AMAZING! After all of that there we were looking at a baby that was just 14 days in the making!
We could hardly believe it...there are times that we can still hardly believe it. We are totally thrilled and madly in love already. And so begins this adventure!
This baby is a long time coming and such a blessing and answer to prayers for our family. We have been trying for a little over 2 1/2 years for this one. Go figure. For those who don't know, it took 5 years for us to get Caleb here but then after that we seemed to have the formula down. Nate, Hayden and Max came along boom boom boom...like a little step ladder so it came as a bit of a surprise to us that we didn't achieve pregnancy #5 with such ease.
2 years into trying we finally started seeing Dr. H. Randall Craig at The Fertility Treatment Center. We did the whole fertility workup and then they started us on a fairly aggressive regimen of fertility medications that included injections and oral medications and monthly IUIs (Intra Uterine Insemination). Each month we got our hopes up...each month it failed. It was very hard emotionally especially with all the hormones coursing through my blood! :)
On the third cycle of meds I actually developed ovarian cysts instead of viable follicles. That was devastating. I had to take medications to supress ovulation and it set us back about 6 weeks. As it turns out we had a very early miscarriage on the subsequent cycle. So early that we were unaware of the pregnancy until I was actually miscarrying (perhaps 5 gestational weeks which is actually maybe 3 weeks after conception). Again, it was devastating.
Finally on Nov. 5 we had our 3rd IUI and as they say, 3rd time is a charm...12 days later (I couldn't wait out the 14 days they suggested!) we tested and found out that we were expecting. Two days later on Nov. 18th we had an ultrasound and got to see our little blip on the screen with it's tiny heartbeat. AMAZING! After all of that there we were looking at a baby that was just 14 days in the making!
We could hardly believe it...there are times that we can still hardly believe it. We are totally thrilled and madly in love already. And so begins this adventure!
SLACKER!
I have been such a slacker. This is my promise to myself that I am going to improve on keeping up this blog this year. As I have said many times, this blog is really mostly a record for our own family, a journal of sorts but now and then there might be something someone else finds interesting so feel free to browse. I am working on trying to post more of those things here this year. So here's to better blogging! Wish me luck.
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