Learning to Enjoy the Waiting Time of Recovery

In anticipation of the birth of little T, I talked about how I really was not looking forward to the immediate post-partum recovery time. But I also have to make a confession, I am an impatient person. I confess impatience and my struggles in how I handle it every time I go to the Sacrament of Confession.

I have been trying to be okay with sitting around, sleeping, resting, bathing, waiting to feel better. I have been doing pretty well, but perhaps not as well as I should. The weather is so lovely, I look out the window and see people going for walks, the children playing in the yard, and all I feel up for is napping, reading, and cuddling the baby. I am impatient to feel better so that summer does not pass me by. I am impatient to go for walks. I am impatient to feel normal again. But when a shower is enough to make me tired for the rest of the morning, I know that I have to wait.

I complained about feeling impatient last night to M, and we sat down to do a little silent prayer time. I am back to reading Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales for like the fifth time since we had G six years ago. It is so full of reminders that I doubt that I will never stop going back to it. The last section I read, the night before T was born was on patience. I read it again, and, well God knew what I needed to hear:

As to the trials which you will encounter in devotion (and they are certain to arise), bear in mind our dear Lord’s words: “A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world.”

You, too, have conceived in your soul the most gracious of children, even Jesus Christ, and before He can be brought forth you must inevitably travail with pain; but be of good cheer, for when these pangs are over, you will possess an abiding joy, having brought such a man into the world. And He will be really born for you, when He is perfected in your heart by love, and in your actions by imitating His life.

When you are sick, offer all your pains and weakness to our Dear Lord, and ask Him to unite them to the sufferings which He bore for you. Obey your physician, and take all medicines, remedies and nourishment, for the Love of God, remembering the vinegar and gall He tasted for love of us; desire your recovery that you may serve Him; do not shrink from languor and weakness out of obedience to Him, and be ready to die if He wills it, to His Glory, and that you may enter into His Presence.

Bear in mind that the bee while making its honey lives upon a bitter food: and in like manner we can never make acts of gentleness and patience, or gather the honey of the truest virtues, better than while eating the bread of bitterness, and enduring hardness. And just as the best honey is that made from thyme, a small and bitter herb, so that virtue which is practised amid bitterness and lowly sorrow is the best of all virtues.

Gaze often inwardly upon Jesus Christ crucified, naked, blasphemed, falsely accused, forsaken, overwhelmed with every possible grief and sorrow, and remember that none of your sufferings can ever be compared to His, either in kind or degree, and that you can never suffer anything for Him worthy to be weighed against what He has borne for you.

Consider the pains which martyrs have endured, and think how even now many people are bearing afflictions beyond all measure greater than yours, and say, “Of a truth my trouble is comfort, my torments are but roses as compared to those whose life is a continual death, without solace, or aid or consolation, borne down with a weight of grief tenfold greater than mine.”

-Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, Part 3, Chapter 3, “Patience”

So, even now, I pray for more patience and more joy in being with my newly born baby and in my newly post-partum achey, sore, tired, generally exhausted state. I am not supposed to be doing anything besides taking care of me and baby, and I will work to enjoy it patiently. And when that fails, I will look to the Cross, which carried me through labor and will carry me through now.

This little guy is much more comfort than trouble for sure.

And honestly, I am mostly enjoying it. It is just the sudden moments of impatience that show me I need to grow.

Waiting Week

Four years ago today I was 9+ months pregnant with G. M was on Spring Break his first year in graduate school for his PhD. G was due on March 7 and that was the first day of his break. The idea was for the baby to come at the beginning of the week and then him to have a whole week off for us to adjust to the new life of being parents. That did not happen. Four years ago today my sister went into labor and had her second child and daughter who is also my Goddaughter. We were due the same day. G decided to wait until her father’s birthday to kick me into labor. I made his birthday dinner with some friends over. The contractions got stronger and stronger and closer together as we ate dinner, had cake, and chatted. Our friends suggested playing a board game as we often did after our dinner parties. “Actually,” I said, “I am pretty sure I am in labor.” They got really excited and said they would go home. They could not wait to hear our news. M and I started practicing our Bradley relaxation techniques, called the doctor, called family and finally decided to go to the hospital around midnight. G was born 5 hours later on the Ides of March. Now she is about to be four, and is a sweet, pretty, intelligent, and pious little girl who either wants to be a princess, nun, or marry her three year old friend who she has playdates with…

Photo by bk1bennett.

This year we are waiting for the white smoke. Today it was black. I should the girls the closing of the Sistine Chapel on the live broadcast by EWTN, and am now finally an EWTN watcher. (I love when TV that is worth watching is available online since we do not have a TV.) The girls seem unable to distinguish between baseball Cardinals and Church cardinals, since after seeing the doors close, L requested to see Fredbird. At any rate we have been telling them about praying for the conclave and for the new pope. Maybe they will be able to see some live smoke streaming. This is the first time in their lives I will let them watch live television. Pope TV is probably the best that TV can be.

Here we are waiting. Maybe it will be the Ides, and that is not a bad thing for the next pope unless he picks the name Caesar I which would be just wrong… But I know of a sweet little girl born on the Ides and she is just fine.

The Birth Story (I can’t be held responsible for details you did not want to know. This is your warning.)

If you follow this blog at all you may remember my complaint about pre-labor for most of a week starting on Monday, Oct. 30. Well this continued in the same fashion through the birthday on Wednesday, November 7. The only change in the pattern was that on Monday the contractions were slightly stronger and by Tuesday they were of the same intensity that I had the day before L was born. They were 10-30 minutes apart for most of the day and stopped when I went to bed around 11pm. To be honest, I expected to be woken up in labor the next morning. It just seemed like it would happen. Here is the play-by-play:

4:30 AM- I woke up to the strongest contraction yet and thought, “This could be it!” I decided to try to get some sleep after getting up to use the bathroom. I managed to doze and noticed another contraction come about 20 minutes later. This was not quite what happened with L’s birth. With her I woke up with them consistently every ten minutes. I dozed and had strange dreams about election results and being in labor while the stronger-than-I-had-been-having-in-nine-days-of-pre-labor contractions were 20-30 minutes apart until M’s alarm went off around 6.

6:00 AM- I told M what had been happening. We decided that I should get up and take a shower and see if things intensified or seemed like my typical pre-labor days.

7:00 AM- The contractions had been just as strong and were happening every five minutes at this point. M decided to cancel his classes for the day so that I could have some help with the kids.

7:30 AM- They were still five-ish minutes apart. I could still walk through them and talk through them. I decided to call my parents and tell them to get ready to come to town. They had a nine hour drive ahead of them and I figured the sooner they left the better it would be for the kids.

8:30 AM-Things were still going as they had before with fairly regular strong contractions, but I could still walk and talk. I decided to do some of my weekly house chores that had not yet been done. I got ready to mop the floors. When the mopping was finished and I was still having the contractions we decided to look into getting the kids set up with the friends who were planning on watching them while I was in labor. M got together things for them and started making phone calls. We also started timing the contractions.

9:30 AM-The timing of the contractions was not going well. For some reason timing contractions with precision stresses me out, and stress makes my labors slow down and even putter out. I started getting really anxious that this was not labor and that M had canceled class for no reason and that my parents were going to come and stay for a week and there would be no baby. I just felt a lot of (probably unreasonable) pressure to know I was in labor and stay in labor. Further I was anxious about the kids’ childcare since we had not yet been able to line up someone who could watch them all day.

10:00 AM- The kids things were packed, my suitcase was mostly packed. The contractions were more like 10 minutes apart and not very strong anymore. M got a hold of one of our friends who had offered to watch the kids and being a stay-at-home home schooling mom she was able to have them over all day until dinner time. Another family was going to have the girls for dinner and then if I was still in labor the mother would put the girls to bed at our house and wait the arrival of my parents. As soon as things lined up I had a massive contraction. My stress about the kids had been making it harder for me to relax and allow labor to happen.

10:30 AM- M took the girls to our friends house and of course I started to miss them. My parents called to tell me that they were leaving St. Louis. I started feeling anxious again since my contractions were now 10-20 minutes apart and still not as strong as they had been. I had the occasional super strong one, but still nothing super regular.

11:30 AM- M and I took a walk (maybe .5 miles?) and I started having stronger, more regular contractions on the walk. When we got back home and I sat down, they still were not super regular. I started worrying if it was labor at all still. I did some reading and sitting around and trying not to focus on if it was labor.

1:00 PM- We were hungry for lunch and my contractions were picking up again, so M went out and got us some Jimmy John’s subs. I had a roast beef sandwhich. It was delicious and took me until 2:00 PM to eat. During that time we ordered L’s birthday presents and the Christmas presents for the kids online.

2:00 PM-More active contractions were setting in, and I decided to take a bath and see how things went. The bath was nice, but not nice enough to mask the pain of stronger, regular contractions. They seemed about 5 minutes apart and sometimes only 3 minutes apart.

3:30 PM- With the contractions 3-5 minutes apart and intensifying, I decided to call the “maternity care center” at St. Joseph’s hospital and see if they thought I should come in. My reason for getting to the hospital sooner was so that I could have a round of antibiotics to take care of my positive beta-strep results. I also wanted to be settled in the hospital before transition. I had arrived during transition with L and things were rushed, crazy and not exactly relaxing at all. The nurse thought it would be good to come in given that it was my third delivery.

4:00 PM- We were in the car heading for the hospital. I sent out texts to family to let them know, and called the grandparents to give more details. M said that he could tell by my voice when I was having contractions, so things were definitely progressing.

4:10 PM- We parked and went in the main hospital entrance and then were given directions for a pretty long trek to the maternity care center. I guess they want to make it hard for random people to walk in on that part of the hospital (and run off with the babies?). I had to stop a couple of times because of contractions.

4:20 PM- We made it to the maternity care and were brought to a room. I gave them the sample they needed and threw on the hospital gown to make monitoring easier. Then we started talking with our nurse Julie. She was in her first year at maternity care and had a more experienced nurse, Maggie, helping her and giving advice. The nurses were both super friendly and we chatted about my other two births and how things went then and how things were progressing with this labor. She hooked me up to the monitor to check on contractions and the baby’s heartrate, and then put the IV line in my arm (yuck!).

4:45 PM- While we were waiting for the monitoring we got on facebook to ask for prayers for the labor. The contractions which had slowed down slightly when we got to the room were picking up again.

5:00 PM- After successful monitoring the nurses decided to check the dilation and station of the baby. They measured me at 4 cm. I do not remember the station. Things were continuing to progress like normal labor. I decided to put my own shirt back on since it seemed like it would be a few hours before I was ready to deliver.

5:15 PM- They got the antibiotics started.

5:45 PM- It was time to monitor the baby again, which we did in the rocking chair in the room. Julie suggested we order dinner before the cafeteria closed in case labor went long.

6:00-7:00 PM- They were having trouble getting clear readings and had me move to the bed to get better access to my abdomen.

Sometime in here they decided the baby’s heartrate was dropping too low during contractions and they had me use and oxygen mask. This also happened with G’s delivery. My strong long contractions are strong and long I guess.

Dinner came sometime before 7:00 PM and I had a few sips of milk and then lost my appetite.

I was taken off oxygen when they were able to see what was going on with the baby better.

7:00 PM-They checked me again, and I was measuring at 6-7cm with an intact bulging bag of waters. Maggie mentioned that as soon as my water broke I would probably at 10 cm and ready to push. They called Dr. K to come to the hospital. The baby warmer was brought into the room.

I was in the midst of the most intense transition of all three of my totally natural births (besides the antibiotics). Every contraction was long and crazy intense. I had thoughts about never wanting to do this again and mentioned to M that I was not sure if I could manage the pushing after the transition. The pressure of the baby descending plus the bag of waters was always present. I just laid on my side and let those contractions do their thing. Which is all one can do with labor.

7:25 PM- Dr. K arrived in the room and checked on things. Transition was still in high gear. I think I asked her about the Bible study at our parish between contractions. I was supposed to be there that night.

7:35 PM- My water broke. Gush went the bag. SLAM went the head. I informed the room as it happened. I had a couple more contractions before the urge to push was imminent.

7:40ish PM- Pushing contractions were at hand. I was planning on easing into them so as to avoid a tear this time. I turned from my side to inclined on my back and breathed through the first pushing contractions. The seconds between the pushing contractions were blissfully relaxing compared to the intensity of transition.

The baby’s head was starting to crown even with the lack of pushing, so I decided to push a little with the next contraction. With that push the head came halfway out. M described this to me. They urged me to continue to push to get the head out the rest of the way and then the shoulders. It felt like one long continuous pushing contraction until the whole body was out.

7:49 PM-Dr. K announced that we had a daughter and she was placed on my stomach. When the cord stopped pulsing it was clamped and then cut. F stayed on my belly and I was propped up a bit to try nursing her. She was not really interested so I just held her while we waiting for the placenta to come out.

The placenta seemed to be taking longer than Dr. K thought it should, so she did a little uterine massaging. We decided to have M hold F so I could focus on pushing out the placenta. It came out all in one piece. This might be TMI, but I had a very small tear which only needed a few stitches. It is a huge difference in recovering than even my small one with L, not to mention the 4th degree with G. Anyway…

They noticed some heavy bleeding. One of the things they do at St. Joseph’s in St. Paul is weigh the pads to see the exact amount of blood the mother is losing after delivery. 500 ml is considered to be a hemorrhage. I bled 1.5 L in two hours after delivery. So, they were fairly concerned.  Pitocen and some other pill which caused cramping were administered. The bleeding slowed to normal eventually. My favorite story about the bleeding was when I called my brother to talk to him about his goddaughter and mentioned the bleeding, asking for prayers. He asked me to let him know when the bleeding stops. So, in a couple of weeks he will be getting a random text message. To resolve the bleeding issue, they found my hemoglobin levels to be way above that of an average pregnant woman at 13.8 a few hours after delivery. They were holding strong at 12.5 the next morning. Apparently I bleed a lot after delivery and my body can handle it. Because of the bleeding I was not allowed to get off the bed until 5 hours after delivery. I managed just fine without any faintness.

While I was waiting to get up, Julie was clearing some equipment out of the room. She invited M to touch the placenta. He, being the way he is, was totally willing and they did a thorough examination of the placenta and the chorion and amnion. I think that is the most intimate experience he wants to have with that organ, but if you ask him he will tell you how much fun he had checking it out. Julie decided that he was cool enough to be her friend. Before she went off duty she told us how she had found the birth beautiful. She was a great nurse to have for birthing. 🙂

1:00 AM- After being allowed to get out of bed the night nurse came in and gave F her first bath, weighed and measured her. At some point we got to go to sleep.

I loved that at this hospital we got to hold our baby for 5 hours after delivery before they even bothered to record a birth weight. She did not leave our room until she was 24 hours old to go for a hearing screening, heart screening, and blood draw. M went with her to do that. While I can’t really stand being in a hospital for very long, this was by far the best hospital experience. The nurses were totally cool with our natural birth plan and very supportive of everything being as we wished. Dr. K was also awesome. We were able to check out 25 hours after her birth and get home after the other kids were in bed. I was really glad I was able to say good morning to them at home right after they woke up the next morning.

We feel so blessed by the arrival of our third daughter and once I lose the memories of the-most-intense-transition-ever I could consider having another birth at that hospital.

However, M says that he would be willing to deliver the next baby at home now that he has witnessed three deliveries…

Friday Quicktakes–11/9

1. I made two delicious recipes this week while awaiting the birth of Baby #3. The first was steak pie, which was yummy and steaky. I am now allowed to cook savory pies for dinner whenever I want. 🙂 I also made French Onion Soup from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It was delicious as usual.

2. The baby came on Wednesday at 7:49pm.

3. It is a GIRL! Now we have three beautiful girls.

4. 2 hours and 49 minutes from 4 cm to birth is pretty intense. (Labor started around 4:40am but was not regular until 1pm)

5. 49 minutes from 6-7 cm to birth is crazy intense.

6. 6 minutes of pushing is less painful than 43 minutes of transition.

7. I will post a more detailed birth story soon for those who want to know. We came home 25 hours after delivery and my bed is way better than that hospital bed. I am feeling better at this point than I did after the other two as long as I have my 600 mg of Ibuprofen. Nursing is going great.

Friday Quicktakes for Sept. 21 & 28

I could not come up with enough last week so here are a few ones I wrote last week and some new:

1. A few weeks ago I was really excited about a water-birth for the current child in utero. Then I learned that the hospital has a policy of breaking the water before allowing the water-birth and that led to a train of thought that made me realize that I would rather do a land birth. There were too many factors that could prevent the water-birth from being allowed and I decided I do not need the stress of not knowing what I was going to do. The hospital otherwise has great natural birth policies and a really low rate of c-section. My favorite part of my last two deliveries was that my water did not break until pushing time. 3 weeks until full term, 6 weeks until due date, ? weeks until the baby is here.

2. I am no longer dreading the newborn phase. It helps that about a billion of my 550 facebook friends have been having newborns in August and September and posting pictures of them. I am getting eager to meet this little one, and am running out of clothes that fit. 

3. We successfully canned 12 jars of applesauce from a bushel of the apples we got on our picking excursion. Win.

4. How to make vanilla extract: Put vanilla beans in vodka for several months. It smells amazing. I am not in the habit of taking swigs of vanilla and I am pregnant so I am not sure how the raw flavor compares to that of store bought or Mexican vanilla.

5. A big stresser taken care of this week is the purchase of our “new” used minivan. Thoughts on driving it: I can see around corners better, over other cars better. Today was warm enough to use the moon roof and it was fun to do that. And I could roll down the driver side window! Our poor Chevy Lumina has been without that feature for about four years now. Three words: power sliding doors. I feel like I am driving in luxury. My parents never bought a car with “bells and whistles,” so it is all so new to me. Also, whoever owned it before us took great care to keep it looking nice. I hope we do as well.

6. Our Lumina is still in our possession. We are contemplating, when we buy a house, living further out of the city (as opposed to walking distance of campus) with at least a 1/2 acre of yard. That might fit better with the home school lifestyle of a large family. I might discuss that another time, but I also want to talk with friends who live further out of whatever town they live near and how they like the lifestyle. (Also, M has decided he wants to live on a lake and own a boat. This idea makes me fear for my children’s safety and if this happens we will get a very secure fence…)

7. Meet Blue Hubbard squash:

My husband fears it is actually an alien life form biding its time to capture us and do who knows what. This also involves it growing tentacles. My plans for it involve making pie. It is supposed to be delicious and according to the farmer at the market it is the main ingredient in the store bought canned pumpkin. I will definitely update on what happens to this squash.

Thinking About the “New Baby”

Sometime amongst the past two months of travel, unpacking, and adjusting I hit the third trimester with this pregnancy. If this baby comes as early as L. did we have about 10 weeks until we find out if we have another beautiful daughter or a handsome son. This past week I started feeling the third-trimester exhaustion along with the back pain and then the dread of never getting sleep once the baby comes. So, not exactly happy feelings about having another baby. Additionally, I started thinking about labor, delivery and recovery, which is not the most pleasant set of physical experiences one can have.

I decided it would be a good idea to plan for the tour of the “maternity care” ward of the hospital. I called on Friday, to discover that the quarterly scheduled tours were taking place on Saturday (yesterday). I found some last minute childcare (courtesy of another professor and his family whom we had just had dinner with this past week), and M. and I got the tour yesterday.

We walked into a wing and discovered that there is no nursery for holding babies at all, unless they are needing special care, and that I will labor, deliver, and recover in the same room and that all the baby will need for care after I give birth is right in that room as well. So, the only option is rooming in. I also got to see the room and tub for waterbirths, which my doctor has attended before and I plan on trying. If I have the waterbirth I will have to leave my room, but I am excited for a hospital that says on their webpage: “Our goal is to give you the safest birth and avoid unnecessary interventions.” and “St. Joseph’s has a low cesarean rate: 11.3% compared to a national average of 30.2%.”. I have great hopes for another natural birth this time around.

It is not that my birthing experiences with my first two were horrible, it is just that the hospital viewed it more as a medical procedure, where as it really seems that this hospital and the nurses working there want to make things as natural as possible. The reason I am using a hospital is in case there is a need for medical intervention, plus I found a really great pro-life family doctor for my care in St. Paul and I want to be able to work with her for the birth as well.

I found this article on the hospital’s maternity care and a history of how they got a more natural focus. Evidently though I should fall into one of two categories, at least roughly: “recent immigrants who are used to midwives in their home countries and older, professional women”. Which I don’t, so maybe they should add another category of young mom’s who care to have a natural birth. 🙂

That all being said, I am starting to be more excited about meeting this baby outside the womb. There is something about newborns that you can’t find anywhere else, even if you are sleep deprived.