For anyone who is my Facebook friend, this post will be redundant, but I did want to stick a few pictures from Jacob's homebirth up for the (few!) friends who aren't on FB! The above picture was taken a few minutes after Jacob was born. As you can see, he's already sucking on his fists (it was the first thing he did after he was born--seriously within 2 seconds!).
Aaron and Jonathan seeing Jacob for the first time...And BTW, the reason I'm not in any of these is that I was totally naked! Didn't want to show those pictures to the world ;).
Here is our wonderful midwife, Paula, and her assistant, Genesis, doing a newborn exam...
Look at all that vernix!
still sucking on his fists...
he weighed 8 lbs, 4 oz.
The proud daddy :).
For anyone who is my Facebook friend, this post will be redundant, but I did want to stick a few pictures from Jacob's homebirth up for the (few!) friends who aren't on FB! The above picture was taken a few minutes after Jacob was born. As you can see, he's already sucking on his fists (it was the first thing he did after he was born--seriously within 2 seconds!).
Aaron and Jonathan seeing Jacob for the first time...And BTW, the reason I'm not in any of these is that I was totally naked! Didn't want to show those pictures to the world ;).
Here is our wonderful midwife, Paula, and her assistant, Genesis, doing a newborn exam...
Look at all that vernix!
still sucking on his fists...
he weighed 8 lbs, 4 oz.
The proud daddy :).
Posts
11 comments:
Love the pictures, Melissa. Were you lying there naked with Aaron and Jonathon in the room? These days I can barely stand to be naked, even when I'm alone. :)
Oh my, I didn't realize how what I wrote would give people that impression! Yikes! No, I was cleaned up and covered with a sheet in that picture; I guess Elijah just wanted to get the boys' faces in that one. I
don't like to be naked, either, and had a shirt on for the first part of my labor, but took it off to get in my tub and when I got out, I was 10 cm dilated and in a lot of pain and wasn't worried about being naked at that point! But I do generally try to avoid being naked in front of my kids (especially male teenagers!).
I was just curious. Their expressions didn't look like "hey, mom is naked," but one never knows. Were you scared to have the baby at home? I was scared in the hospital, that's for sure.
It's weird, the older I get, the more anxious about birth I seem to get. Although I have always been somewhat nervous about my births, I'm more so now. I thought it would work the other way around, but apparently not! I think birth is somewhat scary no matter where it takes place--we just don't have any guarantees. But the funny thing is that only time I'm nervous and scared is during my pregnancies; once labor starts, I'm too distracted to be scared--I have to focus all of my energy on getting through it!
This may sound silly, but one of the main things that would scare me about having another c-section (if I ever have another baby and needed one) would be getting the spinal block. I've watched women getting spinals on "A Baby Story", and just cringe when they are being prepped. I mean, I know it's way better than general anesthesia (which is what I was given at Forrest General for my c-section w/ Aaron), but I would be terrified. Is it really that scary? Hopefully my fears are unfounded ;).
I guess it's because we're more aware of dangers as we get older. I feel that way about most things - flying, driving, medications etc... In addition, once you have kids at home that need you, it's scary to think about something happening!
As for the spinal, STOP watching that stuff. I refuse to look at any of it, because I can't change it, so why freak myself out? Pat says that doing a spinal is about the easiest procedure for an anesthesiologist. I must admit, however, that the anesthesia is the part that scares me the most too. As far as pain goes, the IV hurt far worse than getting the spinal.
I can't believe you had a general with Aaron. I don't think anyone does that anymore because it's considered too dangerous. Also, you don't get to hold the baby right away if you have a general. Maybe you had special circumstances?
You're right, my increased anxiety about my births is definitely due to an heightened awareness of my own mortality, especially considering my kids...I must confess that at the end of Jacob's pregnancy whenever I heard Annie say "I want my mommy", the thought "what if I die during childbirth?" flashed through my mind. I know it's ridiculous, because I could also die in a car wreck any time, but still....
I'm glad to know that spinals aren't that big of a deal. My favorite cousin is an anesthesiologist, and I remember him saying that if the needle went 1/8 of a centimeter too far, it could cause damage. That has stuck in my mind over the years! And you're right, those giant 18 gage IV needles hurt like hell!! I still remember it from my labor with Aaron 17 years ago; the worst thing about it was that the idiot nurse said it wasn't going to hurt, so I wasn't prepared--it felt like a roofing nail was jammed into my wrist!
As for the general anesthesia I was given, basically the special circumstances were that I was young and poor. I don't want to bore you with all the details, but I was treated terribly during my labor at Forrest General. I had a horrible nurse (and didn't know I could request another one), and the doctor on call was Dr. Shannon (maybe you and Pat knew or heard of him in H*burg? he was legendary for bad bed-side manor). Anyway, there was just so much I didn't know, like that instead of going to the health department for prenatal care (which was demoralizing), we could've paid extra (to compensate for what Medicaid wouldn't cover) and I could've gone to a private doctor. Also, at least 17 years ago, at Forrest General they routinely gave gen. anesthesia to Medicaid patients for c-sections, because apparently Medicaid didn't compensate adequately for the cost of epidurals. Now, I have nothing against paying extra so that the doctor is compensated for his/her time and expertise, it's just that I wasn't told any of this ahead of time (I mean, for crying out loud, my family would've given us the money if we'd known we needed it!!). And here's one of the sad things about that birth: when I woke up from the anesthesia, I didn't even realize I'd had a baby :(. And as far as holding him, I was so disoriented that I didn't even want to. It took a day for me to even really wake up, and then when I started nursing, there was constant "arm wrestling" over my baby--they always wanted to take him for something or another (your recent hospital stay may have been similar). I'm glad to hear that they're letting women keep their babies in their rooms at FG now (I'm sure Methodist hospital opening a maternity ward years ago "encouraged" some positive changes--competition can be a good thing!). But anyhoo, I'm just SO grateful for the six nice homebirths I've had, and would certainly have a hospital birth if I needed to--but would definitely not be the same "push-over" patient I was 17 years ago :).
Know what? The morning that I left for the hospital, I got in bed with the boys and hugged them and cried. I worried that they would never see me again, and William would be asking, "Where's Mommy?" It causes me enough anxiety that as I was waiting for the surgery to begin, I kept thinking, why the hell didn't we hire a surrogate to carry this baby? I have boys who need me! Crazy, I know.
I don't know what FGH is like now for birthing. I had the boys at Wesley, and they were great. They were actually a lot better than the terrible experience I had here. I was really surprised, but found myself unhappy/upset/crying much of the time. I even told Meg that I didn't feel like I had just had a baby. Where's the baby? I felt like I was in the hospital for surgery instead. NOT a positive experience whatsoever.
I would MUCH rather have my babies at home, but I'm too scared given my age and medical history. I'm glad it has worked out well for you though.
I don't know Shannon btw. I'm not sure if Pat does or not.
Can you believe they would not ALLOW me to see my baby for at least four hours after having her, and it actually turned into nearly FIVE? Even when I asked, I was told "no." I could go on and on. Let's just say the food was the best part of the entire experience, and they starved me for the first 24 hours. Oh, they even said I couldn't have anything to drink for 24 hours, and that was after being NPO for 12 hours. It was really bad, Melissa. Really, really bad.
I failed to tell you that they kept giving her bottles in the nursery so she was never hungry when she was with me.
No, your end of pregnancy fears don't sound crazy, they sound normal. Thankfully we survived!
I didn't realize you'd had the twins at Wesley (I always think of it as Methodist, since that was what it was for so long before it was bought). I remember when Wesley opened its maternity ward, it sounded so nice. I'm so glad women have a baby friendly hospital in H*burg.
The hospital in Katy sounds worse than FG 17 years ago!! That's awful that they wouldn't let you have your baby for almost 5 hours after the birth!! And all the bottles when they knew you were breastfeeding? I didn't think any hospitals still did that (that's what they did when I was born in 1973, but my mom still managed to breastfeed successfully, thank goodness).
I sure hope you find a good OB and a nicer hospital for any future pregnancies!!
I didn't think my epidural or spinal hurt! Am I weird? I thought I had some shabby treatment in Hburg, too, being a MedicAid patient. The itty bitty hospital I had JA in doesn't even have a nursery. I kept JA the whole time. They NEVER took him. Everything was done in the room. Only time I wasn't in the room was during the c-section. The Katy hospital needs to catch up to the 19th century. haha
No, you're not weird at all, I'm the goofy one ;). I guess for me it's just the idea of a shot/catheter in my spinal column that gives me the creeps. The hospital your son was born in sounds great--all of the hospitals in my area are similar. How does that hospital in Katy get away with that stuff?!!
Post a Comment