Statistical Goodness 3.0

Weight: 154.5 lbs (growing pleasantly, although 3 lbs of that is probably a bag of organic Oreos I blew through in about 5 days)
Hips/Belly: 40 inches
Waist: 31.25 inches
Bustyola: 37 inches
(awww, no new development there)
4: estimated and exaggerated pounds of mucus I've coughed up from stupid cold
3: times I've broken my Lenten fast and had a burger, because somehow I thought that starving myself of beef was making my cold last longer
3: number of pairs of maternity pants I'm holding steady with... refusing to buy more until 6 months, when I can justify a pair of cute jeans, and by then it might be warm enough to go for the "convertable capris" for 29.98 (+ 30% discount!)
15: times I've almost bought the French wool teddy bear daddy/baby set at Motherhood (their names are Emile & Emilien!) and decided against it

Thierry Henry or Mia Hamm?

I think I got my first booting in the ute by Spampy baby, during my RCIA meeting on Sunday morning. It was a relatively quiet and still atmosphere, and I didn't have much digestional excitement happening, and suddenly, from inside... "whump." I looked around - tiny earthquake on an forgotten Dayton fault line? New sort of gas? God Himself poking my internal guts with an ethereal finger?
Later, in church, I got the feeling that there was some swimmy-swimming sort of activity happening down there as well. It's time, according to all sources, to be feeling Baby. S/he's still small enough to have plenty of wiggle room inside the womb, but big enough to be making some waves.

eBay Baby and the Belly

Well, our package arrived and last night we spent a few minutes with headphones on, pushing that "gently used" Bebe Sounds listening thingey into my belly and clicking. The device itself looks like a combination of a giant computer mouse and the baby monitor they use in the movie "Signs" to hear the aliens. Aptly, that's what we would do - hold, click, and hear aliens. So far we're not sure what all they're saying.

There is a gush-gush-gush sound that is probably my placenta, as it's much louder on one side than the other, and then aways off in the distance you can hear my heart beat. As for whether we can hear baby, we're going to wait and try again under less rushed circumstances. The instructions advise above all being patient, while a quiet room, 4 hours since last meal, and being at least 5+ months along are it's other suggestions for optimal baby hearing goodness.

But as far as indicators of baby's health and all, the new snowplow of a belly I'm beginning to push out in front of me says all is well. Today I'm at 20 weeks and 2 or 3 days, and it's either a compliment to how I've been dressing myself or it's a baby & uterine growth spurt, because the staff of Motherhood has collectively been amazed at my sudden baby bumpiness. Yesterday I wore a sweater over another tighter, sheer white sweater... and once we were preparing to close, I took the bulkier one off. Coworker Linda's eyes about popped out of her head. "Loooooook at you!" She then laughed and told me, while making me promise to tell my husband she had noticed, that "your boobs are jigglier too."

So for comparative goodness, I shall put together a Statistical Goodness and see where this belly actually is, size-wise. Tomorrow is our 20-week ultrasound. Smile and wave, Spampy... I wonder if s/he'll be a thumb-sucker like his/her mom was for so long?

eBay Baby

I'm waiting to make an eBay sniper bid on a stupid Bebe Sounds Prenatal Heart Monitor so I can be like Tom Cruise and stalk my baby in-vitro... and of course to play it songs through the sounding board of my belly.
Had to kill 3 minutes somehow. Damn, I type so fast...
Arrrgghh, panicked and bid more than I intended. Hopefully this on eBay doesn't cost more than a brand new one at Motherhood, with my discount! I am pretty comfortable in the knowledge that I think this is the fiddy dollar gift set version...
"gently used"
Now at least I have done what I always tell the customers to do when they bitch about something being too expensive... go find it on eBay. Yee haw.

Statistical Goodness 2.5

Holy Guacamole! I was initially a little worried that I wasn't putting on any weight. After coming back from Michigan, I suddenly bounced from about 151 to ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT POUNDS, per my own scale. Then at Wednesday's doctor appointment, the official doc scale told me 159.
I almost shat. But didn't, and I suspect that this is also the reason for the weight gain - another unpleasant bout of preggo constipation. Thanks, intestines... thanks, hormones. It's been fun. Luckily nature has resolved the issue and I'm now back on track, weighing in at 153 on my own scale at home (the one that I thought was stuck at 151).

Family Beginnings...

Look! It's a very happy me after orientation at the Family Beginnings Birthing Center, Miami Valley Hospital!



Actually this is a amused and well-fed me on Sunday morning in Michigan, as the two inches of ice that had encased our car slowly melted outside and as Jesse reheated biriyani that made our jackets and any other unwashed or unwashable garments (shoes! purses! arrgh!) stink to high masala hell.

I didn't have a photograph of our initial reactions after orientation, so I'm sliding that in as a sub. It's election time, who needs truth and ethics?

Anyway, let me tell you about this place.

After joining the midwives' and Dr Guy's practice at MVH, they handed me a pile of brochures about the hospital, baby making and baby health, and Family Beginnings. Lots of googling "Birthing Center" and "Dayton" had already led me to know of it's existence. After my first prenatal appointment, I was encouraged to give them a call... which I subsequently forgot about until my second appointment. With this cozily situated somewhere on my list of things to do (sort of like "hire a DJ" on my wedding to-do list... and see how far that got me!) but not actually anywhere in my brain, life carried on.

Only later did I notice in a magazine the statistic: more babies are born in the month of July in the US than any other time of year. Suddenly, visions of well prepared mothers laboring in my bathtub, with my birthing ball, eating my snacks, surrounded by family, all cozy in the caring confines of Family Beginnings filled my head; the obvious alternative was that me and other mothers who put it off would be screaming and squatting in a ditches along the lousiest stretches of road in Dayton... mine would be Smithville Road, while we're identifying worst case scenarios, probably while their husbands played golf in shirts that still smelled like biriyani masala... but I digress. This slightly exaggerated thought made me call and take the first possible orientation appointment available, February 19th. The woman manning the phones there is a sweet and patient thing with an accent of sub-Saharian African origin, and let me tell you - this babe will talk at her own pace no matter what.

Me: (after a long list of yes/no questions to determine that my pregnancy is low risk)
So what do I have to do? Are tours available?

Lady: J'you will haveah do come for an ohreehentashion....

Me: (Sort of interrupting) Okay...

Lady: ...anduh we havah ohreehentashion hin hevenings, six surty un-teel seven surty...

Me: (obviously eager to sign up) Okay...

Lady: ... abailable openings are fo Feb-a-uary h'nineteensh, Feb-auary twentayseex, Mawrch farth...

Me: I'll take the first one, Feb 19th?!?

Lady: ...Mawrch aighteenth, Mawrch twentayfeefth, Apebril first, Apebril aighth, Apebril fivteenth, Apebril twentayninah, May seex...

Me: Can I take the first one, please?

Lady: ... anduh May dirtheenth. (pauuuuse.) Whichuh one j'you wooood likeuh?


Needless to say, two nights back we were there, albeit late, to hear a kind nurse (who looked like a chubby Carrie Heffernan/Leah Remini) patiently read the entire low down to a room full of Saby, myself, and probably 3 or 4 other nice responsible looking couples and a few ladies (also nice looking) on their own. The approach brought us through the regular Maternity rooms, which appear to be very nice, but once you step through the double doors that separate Family Beginnings from the rest of the ward, it's like stepping into a Country Inn and Suites. There is a common kitchen and family room area, stocked with rockers, recliners, couches and the all important TV. I almost expected a self-serve waffle station. Then down a little corridor filled with photos of previous happy families born there, are three birthing suites. They have the typical hospital, red plastic room numbers on the outside, but once you're inside it's like a little bed and breakfast.



We were impressed to hear they do NOT have hospital beds - each of the three rooms is equipped with a queen bed, in which both you and your husband can sleep after the birth, a crib for baby, a changing table, cd player and a flat screen tv with DVD player, and a blanket warmer. The bathroom, which is about as big as our bedroom at home, is stocked with the most fabulous TUB ever:



Oooooh, TUB. What a beautiful sight. Us Schaefer girls are bath-takers, much to the disdain of my dear husband, who is too big to fit into a tub and therefore does not understand the joy of soaking oneself up to your chin in hot water. This tub is big enough for me, dear husband, a medium-sized farm animal, and whichever midwife is on duty that night. Not that I'm going to have a goat with me come July, or even invite anyone else in, but I can't imagine that the big beautiful bathtub in my Family Beginnings suite will remain unused once it comes time for Mrs. Lina George to give birth.

Other things Mrs. George loved about Family Beginnings:

FOOD!
Short of actually having that waffle station I mentioned, they, unlike most hospitals today, allow mothers in labor to eat. Not just eat, but eat whatever they want. I'm sure if I were in the tub, dilated 4 centimeters, and asking for a plate of baby back ribs they might protest, but for all intents and purposes it is allowed. Which was one of my biggest issues with a regular hospital birth. Let's see... for 14+ hours I'm going to be extremely uncomfortable, pushing my guts out, and then not be allowed to eat? And all this while not only in labor, but still harboring another living being withing the confines of your physiology. Not eat!?!? I couldn't hack more than three hours of just sitting still without at least a snack. Screw that, maaan!

DVD player and flat screen tv in every room.
Hello, dvds of Sunrise Planet/Sunrise Earth from the Discovery Channel. (hint - this is something that doesn't come on the registry list at Babies R Us, but still something I would love and appreciate as a gift.) Hello, happy hubby watching his reruns of King of Queens after he can no longer handle any more of seeing my distended belly underwater in the tub.

Nurses with a sense of humor.
After reading about the tub from the list of regulations, the nurse who looked like Carrie Heffernan noted that husbands are welcome in the tub, but must bring their own bathing suit. Yikes!

Needless to say, I am actually excited, as it's beyond exactly what I wanted. We're the first ones on the list for the childbirth classes offered at Family Beginnings come June. The environment and attitude there are both phenomenal and it sort of rubs off on you. Definitely good vibes! And I don't think they'll laugh at my birthing chair :-)

Around Dayton town

Good morning from a snow-covered Miami Valley.

I just listened to a snippet of the traffic report while warming up my cold-thwarting chicken soup, and apparently my lovely surreal drive this morning was much more of an exception than the norm. And my gauge of temperature was way off as well. Huh. Felt like 30 to me, but apparently it's 16 outside. Yikes!

So, there's a snow advisory until about 3pm today and up to three inches of snow will be dumped upon us. As it stand now, "dumps" is a gross exaggeration, because the accumulation until now has been a beautiful powdery thing I like to call "bay-bee Jeezus" snow, because it's all beautiful and renewing and innocent and Christmas-y. It takes a special kind of snow to make the city of Moraine look beautiful, and it most certainly did this morning when I drove Saby off to work.

But my "baby Jesus" snow is another man's "oh hell" snow, I guess, and the downed trolley lines at Keowee and Third are a result, along with "numerous" backups along I-70.

When I drove Saby to work it was still sort of dark, and since we left especially early the roads were still pretty empty and snowy. For the ride back I listened to an old cd of hits by the Indian playback singer Kishore Kumar, and drove slowly and carefully, almost in a trance induced by the softened edges of everything outside and the smooth melodies inside. It was a very pretty ride.

Just thinking about it is making me pleasantly sleepy ... and I'm fighting my first cold of the season, so I think I'll go with that vibe and sleep. Oh, my foot for a hot lemonade right now... instead, let me see what crazy dreams I can have.

Then maybe there will be something more entertaining to write about!

Statistical Goodnes 2.0

Weight: 151 lbs
(holding steady!)
Hips/Belly: 39.5 inches
Waist: 29.5 inches
Bustyola: 37 inches
Appliances purchased in pre-nesting frenzy: 3 (Rice Pot, Slow Cooker, Humidifier)
Registries preemptively created: 2 (Babies R Us, Kohls)
Days gone without working out: 7
Days per week resolved to work out henceforth: 4
Number of coffees consumed per day: 1.5 (and they're soy milk, milk and instant coffee!)
Temperature outside: 31 degrees
Inches of snow predicted: 3-8
Inches of sleet that fell instead: 2 or 3?

Ludacris would call it Hyp-no BIRF!

From the Central Illinois Herald Review, a very nice article on a birth method called Hypnobirthing. Have done a lot of reading on it, and will probably commence classes end of February. But my biggest question in this article is whether the lady's name is actually CLATIE, or was that a misprint?!?

Monday, March 7, 2005 12:03 AM CST

Seeing pets give birth without as much as a wince always mystified Clatie Fischer.

The Bloomington mother was skeptical that it was possible for humans to give birth without feeling pain, but she never felt comfortable taking medication.

So, during her second birth, she didn't.

Instead, she used self-hypnosis, which she learned from taking a HypnoBirthing class taught by a Decatur mother of two, Cynthia Grgurich.

"The whole idea is pretty new to this area," said Grgurich, who offered her first HypnoBirthing class in 2002. "It's a new twist on a very, very old way of thinking."

Marie Mongan developed the program in 1989 based on the ideals of obstetrician Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, author of "Childbirth Without Fear" that originally was published in 1933.

HypnoBirthing reinforces the theory natural childbirth does not equal pain.

"Fear of birthing is something that's been bestowed on women," Grgurich said. "Fear causes pain, which causes tension, which causes problems with birthing."

It's called "tension-pain syndrome."

She said the uterus and the cervix open up the way they're supposed to when the woman relaxes.

That's where hypnosis comes in.

"When we're deeply relaxed, our subconscious is more able to take suggestion," Grgurich said.

"All hypnosis is self-hypnosis," she said. "You're always in control."

During birth, it's the conscious mind that allows the woman to trust her body and let the subconscious mind direct her in natural childbirth.

"You focus on your body, on what's going on with you and your baby, versus focusing on something else," Grgurich said.

That's comforting to first-time mother-to-be–;Stephanie Norris, a student in Grgurich's classes.

The Streator resident drives an hour and a half with her husband, Mike, to absorb the message that giving birth doesn't have to be painful, contradicting the warnings from her friends who have had babies but have never studied HypnoBirthing.

"I'm trying to block all that stuff out and not even consider it because they've kind of closed their mind to it," she said. "They think that I'm just seeing the world through rose-colored glasses."

With 13 weeks left in her pregnancy, she said the classes have been worth the effort.

"The class helps ease those fears," she said. "Your body's going to do what your body was meant to do, and it shouldn't be painful or scary."

Yet, she said, deep relaxation takes practice.

Grgurich said self-hypnosis is not as foreign as it initially sounds.

"We all go into and out of hypnosis daily, about every 90 minutes," she said.

Fischer, the Bloomington mother of two, compared self-hypnosis to driving a car without remembering the drive.

"You don't remember details, but somehow your body automatically does what it has to do," Fischer said.

She gave birth to her second child with HypnoBirthing a year and a half ago.

Grgurich said her role is to help parents make decisions when dealing with the medical community.

"I do not give medical advice," Grgurich said. "I teach choices. I teach to ask questions."

She also helps the women train their minds to not feel pain.

That lesson pleased Fischer, who always thought her mind is the strongest part of her.

"There doesn't have to be pain," she said. "You get to choose the sensation you feel."

She chose to feel pressure.

"It was like pushing a piano up hill," she said. "It was hard work, but it wasn't unpleasant."

When she felt a contraction, which HypnoBirthing students call a surge, she asked her husband to "do the arm thing."

Grgurich teaches the companions to run the back of their fingertips along the woman's skin.

She said her favorite part is watching couples work together toward a peaceful birth, producing a loving atmosphere.

"The husbands are so attentive," she said smiling, "and it's such a sincere attentiveness."

Martha Aldridge, formerly of Mount Zion, said HypnoBirthing allowed her to feel more in tune with her husband, Shayne, during her second birth at St. John's Hospital two-and-a-half years ago.

She said she felt unprepared with Lamaze classes during her first pregnancy, leading her to feel tense and untouchable when she went into labor.

"I did not want anybody close to me, including my husband," she said.

The second time around was much different.

The couple drafted a birthing plan they learned about in HypnoBirthing class. They made each nurse or physician read the plan as soon as they walked into the room so they each knew she did not want to be asked to rate her pain.

"I wasn't going to feel pain, so I didn't want them asking about pain," she said.

She also didn't want to be connected to the monitor the entire time because she said the constant beeping would have taken away from her concentration and relaxation.

Her husband's touch, on the other hand, kept her relaxed.

"We were very connected," she said. "He was in tune with what I wanted and what I needed. In fact, we had some form of physical contact almost the entire time."

He also repeated reaffirming phrases to help her stay focused.

When three hours seemed like 10 minutes, the self-described skeptic felt convinced.

"I was skeptical the minute we stepped into the hospital," she said. "I said, 'If I'm going to go through this and not feel pain, I'm going to be very surprised.' And I was."

Her physician, Dr. Angela Anderson, agreed.

"She had what she would describe - and I would have to agree with her - basically a pain-free labor," Anderson said. "She was quiet as a mouse. She was so relaxed. She just progressed so quickly,"

One claim of HypnoBirthing is that the relaxation technique will allow the cervix to dilate faster.

Aldridge said it took only seven minutes from the time her water broke to the time her baby delivered himself.

"I had no choice in this situation," she said. "I was so relaxed. The nurse commented after the fact, literally, the baby was born on his own."

Anderson said while epidurals are safe and about 90 percent of patients in labor receive them, she called HypnoBirthing "harmless."

"There's no intervention," Anderson said. "What could potentially go wrong?"

She said she would intervene only if necessary, citing cases of fetal distress, where she would need a Caesarean section, or if something was wrong with the baby's heart.

Grgurich said another claim of HypnoBirthing is that the baby is more relaxed because the mother's more relaxed.

"HypnoBirthing is not just about giving birth," she said. "It's about a lifestyle change."

Deep breathing has come in useful for Aldridge, who said HypnoBirthing gave her a new way to deal with frustration and ease foot cramps.

Even her 9-year-old son has learned to use deep breathing to relax.

"When you start to take that breath and let your body relax by that deep breathing," she said, "it's that relaxing letting go of the tension that lets go of the pain."

Bethany Carson can be reached at bcarson@;herald-review.com or 421-6968.

The Baby of your Dreams!

I think I had my first real "baby" or "motherhood" dream last night. Supposedly these start coming with greater frequency as you get further along in your pregnancy. In "The Red Tent" all the aunties had dreams about their niece too... so if anybody out there has dreams about our baby, please let us know. Interesting note: my Aunt Kathy has dreamed that we are having a boy, even before we told her about being pregnant.

**note: we do not know what we're having, nor are we going to find out until sometime in July when baby arrives!

The dream seemed to be happening in some sort of hillside resort or center, or possibly even a really nice hospital, that was quite big and faced down towards a river and then, across the river, another hill. Details are blurry as they usually are in dreams, so somehow it just seemed that I had had our baby, it was a girl, and she was not terribly cute, but was a solid, healthy, good baby. She had a really big face (fat cheeks) and had dark dark hair that stuck up willy-nilly all over her head, even though it wasn't very long. Not like a buzz cut, but that crazy baby hair, like this but black:



She was a good baby and seemed a little small, because I could comfortably and confidently hold her in one arm, and I remember slinging her up into my right arm right away, and then remembering that babies like to be held over your heart. So I switched sides. Saby was nearby but not there, and I was looking to find him so he could announce her name to everyone there. Standing along the windows were lots of relatives, but namely all my aunts and cousins from Michigan. (they come in my dreams alot, despite only seeing them about once a year!) One of them gave the baby a pacifier, and I threw it out and instead let her suck on the end of my pinky finger. (another random tidbit I had read, and then "remembered" in this dream) She was sucking on it with such amazing voracity that I thought she must be hungry. So, voila I whipped her up and started breast feeding! Even one handed, standing up. If only it's that easy when the time comes!

Somewhere now we all begin to see fire trucks and emergency crews on the other side of the river. Why? Apparently we've all been so involved celebrating the baby that we ignored a fire alarm, and now the fire crews down across the river are going to evacuate us using ladder trucks out the windows. I remembering feeling sad that in the first few hours of my baby's life I'd have to be carried down a ladder by firefighters (random!!!) and ran into the next room to get my sister's jacket, to wrap myself and baby in. When I came back, the scene changed a bit and we had already been evacuated. But I couldn't find my baby! Somebody had taken her down, and we didn't know who had her. I was yelling her name (shhhh, still a secret) and then realized that no one else even knew that it was her name.

Then I woke up.

I figure the beginning was all nice, but the end is your typical stress dream - late for class, can't find class, didn't attend class and there's an exam - type thing. Rather, can't find baby, didn't name baby. Whoops. So note to self, name kid once he/she makes their appearance, and listen for fire alarms.