Guest Mama: Zella's Birth

One of my first friends as a freshman in college was a sweet supporter named Christi. Christi has such a gentle spirit, and she and her good friend Mandy took me, a seriously homesick and possibly depressed girl, under their wings when I really needed it that first semester. I will always appreciate them for that. In April, Christi gave birth to her first child, a beautiful little girl named Zella. She and her husband Bobby have been ecstatic over Zella's arrival, although they have experienced exhausting times as new parents, as Zella seems to have problems with gas and possible food intolerances. They have noticed some recent improvement though, and Christi has been taking Zella on walks in her k'tan wrap (bottommost pic below), which she thinks helps aid the passage of air for baby Zella. Christi was gracious enough to share her birth story on this blog. If you'd be so kind as to send warm thoughts and positive vibes her way, I know she would appreciate it. We are definitely talking about one tired mama. Following is the birth story of Zella Simone Tom, in the words of Christi.

Zella Simone Tom. 7 lbs, 11 ounces. 20 inches long. Labor started at 1:30AM, we arrived at the hospital at 5:30AM, and she was born at 6:37AM on April 16, 2014.

 To begin with, my mom had short, fast births. I had wanted to hire a doula, but we couldn't afford it. My mom kept saying I probably wouldn't have time for one to be helpful. It turns out she was right.

In terms of preparation, I did take prenatal yoga classes at The Yoga Room with Celeste McNeal throughout my pregnancy. These classes were super helpful to learn how to relax and breathe and stretch. Bobby and I also took natural childbirth classes through New Joy Birth with Chris Maricle that were also super helpful. I want to give Chris a hug because of how wonderful the breathing training was, especially when I was trying not to push and then when I needed to push.

I went on walks once or twice a week, and I started swimming once a week the last month. I also read Natural Hospital Birth and Ina May's Guide to Natural Childbirth.

Our due date was April 19th, and Zella came three days early. I had serious Braxton-Hicks contractions three weeks before for 24 hours, and then regular Braxton-Hicks off and on after that. This led me not to believe I was really in labor when I was.

The Story:
At 1:30AM I woke up with contractions that were medium, and I felt like they could be gas plus contractions. I sat on the toilet and passed gas and pooped a little while reading articles online. Something about a Cuban refugee baseball player smuggled to the U.S. I was going back and forth from timing contractions and reading. They were around five to eight minutes apart.

I tried to go back to bed, but the contractions were worse lying down. I went downstairs and tried the couch and the other toilet. I ate three prunes. The contractions got stronger and I started deep breathing during them. I didn't think they were serious yet because they had only been going on for an hour or two. I tried sitting on the exercise ball and hated it. I leaned on the ball and that was okay.

Things began getting serious quickly. I came back upstairs and at 3:00AM the contractions were four minutes apart and I had to do deep breathing. I woke up Bobby and told him I was going to shower for the heat and to see if they would go away or get better. I took a shower and had three contractions in the ten minutes I took to shower. I didn't even shampoo.  I had to hold on to the wall during them. I went back and breathed while leaning on the bed and put on clean underwear and Bobby's pajamas (basketball shorts and a giant panda t-shirt). I knew it was serious because I didn't want to put on my clothes because I didn't have time and didn't want anything constricting me.

At 4:30AM, I told Bobby to shower and get ready. I called my mom and told her to get ready, and I had a couple of contractions while I was on the phone with her. I had to pass the phone to Bobby when I had a contraction the first time. The second time I just breathed, and my mom told me I was doing good. I told her to call and leave a message with Grandma Murf to pray. I called and left a message with our doctor. She called back and wished us luck and said this sounded for real. She said another doctor would be on call. In the meantime, Bobby packed the car with our suitcase, pillows, and baby car seat. I was a bit frustrated that he asked me during a contraction if we needed a car seat in the car. We left and I had two contractions on the walk to the car. Bobby had started letting me squeeze his two fingers during contractions. This would prove to be my worst car ride ever.

By this time sitting down was abhorrent and painful during a contraction. The car ride was therefore very intimidating. I had three contractions on the drive there. I had my eyes closed and squeezed Bobby's hand and the door handle and breathed during contractions. I felt shaky and cold. I prayed out loud that God would slow down my labor so I wouldn't have another contraction in the car. Driving up and around and around in the parking garage, I started feeling queasy and made Bobby stop the car during the contraction. We were on the fourth level. We made it to level six and left all our supplies in the car. (They kept asking for our birth plan right after the baby was born and I kept saying it was still in the car. :) God has a sense of humor and didn't let me be a control freak.)

We walked through the lobby and down the breezeway, stopping three times for contractions. I held on and leaned on Bobby. I felt the intense need to push and started blowing small breaths to stop. During a contraction, I told Bobby to not chew his gum. It was wiggling me and I just couldn't handle it. 

Once we arrived at the hospital at 5:30AM, things were kind of blurry until her birth just over an hour later.  I remember that the nurses walked me into a check-in area and asked if I had to pee and gave me a cup. I had a contraction and couldn't pee at all. And I missed having Bobby's hand to squeeze. The nurse wanted me to get on the bed and I was fighting it. I kept standing up and getting off because the contractions were so strong and I was trying not to push. They put a monitor on and Zella's heart rate was stressed during contractions. They asked silly questions that I'm pretty sure I answered in all the pre-op check-in paperwork. I accidentally told a nurse to "Shut up, please!" when she asked questions during a contraction.

Finally, they got me to stay on the bed for a minute and checked my cervix and said I was complete. I felt vindicated and a bit scared. They asked if I had wanted an epidural and I said no. They said good! They rushed to get me a wheelchair and to a delivery room. They said my water hadn't broken but was bulging. They said there was a doctor there but they were paging my doctor, Dr. Dietz, to come because she was on call until 7:00AM.

I had a contraction as they wheeled me down the hall. I was really trying not to push, but my water broke as we entered the room. Lots of nurses were zooming around setting things up. A nurse decided to tell me it was okay to push if I didn't mind the possibility of my doctor not making it. They took the bed apart and let me put my feet on pegs. My mom arrived and stood in the background, telling me I was doing great and breathing great. I was relieved to stop fighting it but couldn't remember how to push effectively. During one contraction, I told Bobby I really wanted to bite him.

And then Dietz arrived. She took control, grabbed my left leg and ordered Bobby to take my other leg. She said it was time to push like I was pooping but to relax my legs and spread them and to curl up my body and put my chin to my chest. I pushed three times through a contraction. Then tried to rest and breathe. Then pushed again, and the next push I was serious and pushed into the pressure and pain. I felt stretching and abdominal pain. Dietz said I was almost there and the baby was coming. I didn't believe her but I pushed and felt my face go red and hot. She said she had a lot of hair. My mom echoed, "She has hair!" I didn't believe them either. Her head came out and her body slid right out afterwards. They put her on my chest and started cleaning her. She cried loudly. They waited a bit and then clamped the cord. Bobby cut it and it squirted blood. I was afraid I'd feel more contractions to deliver the placenta, but it came out without me realizing it.

Afterwards, Dietz sewed up a second-degree tear and a nurse cleaned me up with cold water. I shivered and shook from adrenaline and endorphins. They gave me a local anesthetic. They also asked if I wanted pain meds, and I didn't. I just focused on Zella and the pain was manageable. I was still in shock that she came out of me and that I was no longer pregnant.

We tried some breastfeeding once we got into the postpartum room. Zella gave me several hickeys before I realized what we were doing. She has a strong suck and gets very determined when she eats, and angrily cries when interrupted by gas or me. Bobby was in charge of diapers and the weird merconium poops. He wasn't fazed by her loud screams and fussing.

My retrospective thoughts:
Dietz's coworker came by the next day and said she's never personally seen someone come to the hospital complete--and she's never heard of a first time mom doing it. Hearing this and thinking of the experience, I feel alternately thankful, humbled, and crazy proud. The scary part was wanting to push when I got to the hospital and knowing I couldn't yet. But I got to soon.

I opted for no epidural. The contractions weren't quite pain. They were more like medium menstrual cramp pain in waves that were bad 30 to 40 seconds and then 'okay' pain the last 60 seconds. However, I experienced a crazy pressure when I needed to push. There was also pain during pushing, but pushing was pretty short and intense. It was like being on a fast moving train and not being able to stop.

If I hadn't read and gone to classes and practiced breathing, I probably would have fallen apart because it was overwhelming and would have been scary if I hadn't known what to expect. Also, I had been praying for a smooth, fast birth. Wish granted!

* If you're interested in reading other natural birth stories, you can read about my labor with Van in parts one and two, Mikah's birth with Adelaide, and Keri's birth with Callen, or you can click on the Birth Stories label on the left of the screen.

Spitting-Up and Downward Trajectories

Baby Van has been a spitter-upper since the very first night of his life. I remember the shock I felt when he woke us up spewing at 3:30AM during our first (and only) night in the hospital. I had never had a baby that just randomly spat it all up for no reason, and I hadn't expected it. It began then and hasn't slowed down at all over the course of the last five months.

All along, I have never been too concerned about this situation because Van is what we call a "happy spitter." He doesn't seem at all distressed about spitting up and there is obviously no pain. He smiles right before he spits up, then unleashes it, and then grins hugely again. Weight gain wasn't too much of a concern in the beginning either; he was born large at 9 pounds 5 ounces, so we expected him to lose a little bit of that anyway in terms of percentage. BJ and I just don't make big boys. George, for instance, is in the seventh percentile for weight, but this is also not a problem because he has always had a consistent trajectory.

Apparently, however, we are learning that Van's trajectory is sloping to the point of intervention. His percentages across appointments have gone from the 90's, to the 82nd, to the 70th, to the 61st, and down to the 45th percentile at four months old. It was enough of a decline that Dr. Harmon felt it warranted a weight check at five months old, when he wouldn't normally have an appointment. She also had me begin feeding him every two hours instead of every three, stating that he might be sleeping too long at night and needs one extra feeding in there. Van did not tolerate being fed every two hours, and the spitting up increased by quite a bit. After only one week of that I abandoned it. About ten days ago Van began waking up in the middle of the night for a feeding, and I certainly have been obliging, knowing that he needs the calories. I have been hoping it meant a growth spurt and that his overall percentage would be up at his check-in today. Instead, he had dropped down to the 37th percentile. His height, however, remains in the 92nd percentile.

I welcome advice and help. I should mention that I am exclusively breastfeeding. Let me tell you what our new plan is and all of the things we have tried. As of today, Dr. Harmon told me to set my alarm for 3AM every night and get that extra feeding in. I will certainly do this, but I no longer have confidence that this action in and of itself will make a difference. After all, I have already essentially been doing this over the last ten days and he has still dropped in percentage. During the day I will continue to feed every two-and-a-half to three hours. She also told us to introduce rice cereal two times a day, beginning today. In two weeks we will drop back to rice cereal once daily and introduce vegetables twice per day. Her thought process here is that a heavier solid food may keep his stomach held down better, resulting in less spitting-up overall.

I had very much hoped that Dr. Harmon would not suggest medications (for reflux?) or formula supplementation, and she suggested neither of those today.

I have tried tweaking my diet, eliminating dairy for a period of time, and seen absolutely no difference.

Spitting-up continues to be excessive. He typically goes through at least six outfits a day and I go through two or three different shirts. Burp cloth turnover is frequent; we use receiving blankets as burp cloths and probably go through at least 15 a day if not more.

Some days are worse than others. He may be able to stay in the same outfit half the day sometimes; sometimes we go through four outfits in an hour. It all depends, though I can't tell on what.

I have tried using the baby scale at The Changing Table, the cloth diaper store co-owned by my friend Kristina. I weighed him initially (without clothes or diaper at all weigh-ins), then fed him and weighed him again (he took in six ounces), then spent 30 minutes in the store meandering as he spat up, and then finally weighed him again. He spat up a normal amount that time and it was two ounces, equaling a total intake of four ounces during that feeding.

We have had several friends tell us that their child spat-up inexplicably, and that this usually ended on its own at about six months with no interventions necessary. For moms that experienced this, did your child also experience the downward trajectory of growth that Van has? I would sure love it if this would stop a month from now! As I said before, I am opposed to formula supplementation and am also opposed to medications, unless either of these was explained to me by our physician as being necessary.

Thoughts? Advice? I welcome the help! I feel discouraged and aimless. Thank you, friends!

The Same Side of Eternity

Yesterday, for the first time, I took all three kids to the zoo. It was just the three boys and me. You might could say I brought the zoo to the zoo. We have tackled all kinds of public places and museums together before, but never the zoo. We took it slowly but surely, navigating with the two older boys in the double BOB stroller and I wore baby Van all day in the Hop Tye carrier. As ever, I over-planned and came prepared for nearly all possible needs, most of which didn't arise but I'd rather be safe than sorry. The boys and I hit a playground, the Pachyderm building, the Galapagos tortoises, had a picnic lunch by the water, saw the rhinos and zebras, fed the giraffes, and topped off the day with time at the Children's Zoo petting the goats and soaking themselves in the manmade creek and splashpad. It was definitely a filled day.

At one point before lunch, George mentioned that he needed to go potty. Just before getting ourselves situated with our picnic, then, we stopped at a restroom where everyone but Silas got their needs taken care of. Multiple times Silas insisted that he did not need to go. Of course, ten minutes later as Lunchables were open, oranges were peeled, and drinks were poured, Silas stated, “Mommy, I need to go pee pee now. Actually I need to go shoo shoo.”

Now, normally this would be an incident that would irritate me to no end. The Jenny from a week ago would have scolded Silas in an elevated tone and made my displeasure repeatedly known to my little boy, and perhaps to George and Van as well. But I didn't yesterday.

The reason is Ben.

Ben

Ben, you see, was a little boy who captured the hearts of his community of Buffalo, New York, and hearts across the nation, when he was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive brain tumor. His mother Mindy chronicled his battle with cancer, which only began in January of this year, in her blog. I didn't mean to become emotionally invested in Ben's story, but I happened upon his image, alongside the words “Pray for Ben Sauer,” in my Facebook newsfeed late Monday night. His handsome, arresting brown eyes and crooked, sheepish smile hooked me the very instant I saw him. When I look at Ben, I also see Silas. My fingers clicked on the link while my brain screamed, “NO!” and I sobbed as I read his background story and the “Eleventh Hour” post. Ben, I could clearly tell, was going to die soon.

Ben has an identical twin brother, a little sister, and another baby sister due in September. He lived a totally normal life until four months before his fifth birthday, at which point he began experiencing crippling headaches. The diagnosis was made fairly swiftly, his mom's writing was made public, and people fell in love with a lovable little boy who never had a fighting chance. He passed away this Tuesday night, eight days after his fifth birthday. His aunt Marissa said it best in her post with these words: “God has him. God has us. He's just holding us on different ends of eternity.”

I have been stumbling through my last three days in grief for Ben. The mom in me screams, “What if this was Silas?” What if my little boy continues life normally for six more months and then the unimaginable strikes, and we lose our little boy next May, just after he turns five? What if the years ahead that I flippantly take for granted are never actually written in the books? What if I'm wasting precious, precious time with my kids by being a tired mom who yells too much?

Silas

 Fast forward to the zoo bathroom. By the time I finished feeding Van and we quickly downed half of our lunch, we sped it back to the bathroom and it became apparent that Silas needed clean underwear. That was okay; I had that with me. I wish I could have been a stranger looking at the four of us crowded within that disabled person's stall. I would have seen a mom sitting on the bathroom floor holding a wiggling, happy, spitting-up baby who repeatedly took out his pacifier and attempted to throw it on the bathroom floor (eventually succeeding, so pacifier no more until it was washed). I would have seen a mischievous two-year-old boy scaling the bathroom walls, touching everything possible, and unrolling the toilet paper. I would have seen a preschooler sitting on the potty with no pants, underwear, or shoes, wearing leg-warmers worn on his arms and a fedora perched on his head, planning the afternoon out loud and refusing to actually make a shoo-shoo on the potty. I would have seen the automatic toilet flushing many times as the little boy sat on it, which caused his eyes to widen with mild fear. The boy kept saying with uneasy laughter to his mother, “This potty keeps giving my bottom a bath.” If I was a stranger seeing this scene, I might laugh. After all, what's the big deal? So what if we had to make an extra trip to the bathroom? Change pants? Wash a pacifier? Wash everyone's hands twice? Wrestle a baby in one hand and wipe a dirty bottom with the other? Who cares?

It's still fine---It's still fun---It's still LIFE.

Mindy Sauer would have welcomed this as the worst or most hectic part of her day, no doubt. The least I can do is welcome it too. No more shouting, just patiently teaching the lessons that need to be learned, cutting us all more slack and giving up the absurd notion that my everyday life is sometimes 'hard.'

Ben's story undoubtedly breaks the hearts of people everywhere, but I have an inkling that for those of us who are moms to four-year-old boys with earnest, deep-brown eyes and sheepish grins, it perhaps hits a little closer to home. I ache for Ben and for his family, particularly for the mom who is now separated from her son, and the identical twin whose other half has been torn away by cancer. I'm so lucky to have three healthy boys. No one can guarantee us a tomorrow, but for today, my three kids and I are on the same side of eternity. It's time to stop wasting time. With Ben as my guiding reminder, my time with my kids will be treated like the precious, fleeing gift that it truly is.

Picture-Perfect Love: Part Two

One of my favorite posts I ever put together was a compilation of some of my favorite mother and child pictures. Ever since hitting the "Publish" button, I have longed to do a second edition. Mother's Day seems the perfect time to put Part Two out there. As I said in the original post Picture-Perfect Love, all of these mothers are friends of mine, and I chose each picture because at the time that I first saw it I felt a lump of love rise in my throat. In each of the images, the love from mother to child is so obvious. In some photos, the emotion is awe; in some it is peace, and in some it is pure joy. Pictured atop is my favorite photo of my boys and me, the one I would wish everyone to remember me by. The photo was taken by my good friend Holly Hooper-Stover, a talented photographer who has really come into her own and has been a true pal of mine since the first time we spoke. Enjoy the shots, and thanks to my lovely moms (and dads!) who consented to have their images and names shared! Happy Mother's Day, particularly to the moms in this post who are moms on this day for the first time.

If you look carefully (or perhaps not so carefully), all three of my boys can be spotted.

The legendary Holly and her son Boston at a softball game

 

Lindsey and Ava. This photo has long been one of my favorites!

My friend Jen and her larger-than-life little boy JD. JD is taking the world by storm and has never let a diagnosis of Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome stop him. Follow her blog!

My childhood friend Katie and her adorable guy Bennett

 

Linzy and daughter Lorelei, enthusiastically greeting cousin Baby Harper

 

The two best superheroes I know: my sister Christa and my nephew Sebbie

The adventuresome Laura, out berry picking with Oliver and Lewis (and looking very much like Tea Leoni, if you ask me)

 My sister-in-law Jenny and my brother Billy, Thundering it up with their twins Will and Cora

 College friend Christi, giddy with her newborn Zella Simone. Check back to see her birth story published here soon!

Mikah and Baby Adelaide (Photograph courtesy of Katrina Wheeler Photography). You don't even have to see her whole face to imagine the complexity of the relief, joy, and love written all over it. You can read Adelaide's birth story in this previous post.

Our dear friends Amber and Erik holding their long-awaited Addison. Amber suffered many losses in her quest to bring Addison into this world, and it seems so perfect to me to see their faces finally resting, as though in peace, with their little one in this picture. You can check out Amber's blog if you're interested in her journey.

Cyndi and her dearest Sera, also long-awaited. You can read about her adoption journey on her blog.

 

Jeannie, a busy mother of three (two of them twins!), has always been an eager and proud spectator of her children's activities. Here she is with daughter Brooke.
 

Pictured here are Sue "Bam" and her daughter Lori. These two ladies are among my favorite in the world and have long been dependable friends of ours. Lori's daughter Kolby was behind the lens of the camera, and she too is such a good buddy. This particular photo strikes me because Kolby laughs, remarking that Bam and Lori are the only two crazy cats who would visit her in New England in the middle of a blizzard. Of course they would, because that is what mothers do. Mothers say, "You're not going this alone so I'm coming to be with you." And then mothers of mothers who say that say, "Well wait! If you're going then I have to come too!" Thus you end up with three generations in a freezing, snow-filled city when they ought to be baking on a beach somewhere.

A Case of the Monday Nights

Tuesday is the one day a week I work, so Monday night is always the same for me. Once we have all three boys down to bed, preparation for the next day begins:

Make sure the black backpack has extra clothes and underwear for the two older boys. Check.

Begin the tedious task of packing the red diaper bag for a baby who never stops spewing (this entails a minimum of six outfits, a wet bag, several bibs, and 8-10 burp cloths). Check. If there is not enough of any of these items, more laundry must be started.

Fold at least two loads of laundry. Check.

Begin organizing breast milk into bottles for the next day. Also pump once more for added milk. Check.

Get work things organized (computer charging, documents ready to go). Check.

Realize that I need to plan an outfit because most of my clothes have spit-up on them from the previous two days, and my outfits are still limited because I haven't quite shaken that baby weight yet. Check.

Realize that I need to go jogging today to help shake that remaining baby weight. It's too late. Shoot.

Take a shower instead and head to bed because the alarm goes off at 6AM. Don't even think about trying to take a moment to myself that evening because it comes directly out of the sleep bank. Check.

As I lay my head on my pillow and pull the sheets over me every Monday night between 11:30 and midnight, I always fervently hope that the 'case of the Monday nights' really is just in my imagination and isn't an actual curse. Surely it's been merely coincidence that the last umpteen Monday nights are the ones when I get the worst sleep because my children suddenly need anything and everything in the wee hours---and it won't actually happen again tonight! Such was my hope as I lay down at 11:23PM on Monday night, May 5. Here is my chronicle of events that followed:

•  11:56PM: Just as I am going from light sleep into 'mommy sleep' (a deeper sleep but still not the coma that most fathers seem able to slip into at the drop of a hat), the monitor begins blaring. Van is awake and he's not happy. I get up and put the paci in his mouth. 
• 11:58PM: Yeeeaaah, that didn't work. Plus he spat up. Time for a change of jams and a midnight feeding.
• 12:03AM: Feeding on the couch with a peaceful baby while I consume a handful of animal crackers and crossly watch a beautiful couple purchase a second home in Hawaii on HGTV.
• 12:23AM: Van back sleeping in his crib, back to bed for me.
• 12:40ish: I actually fall back asleep.
• 1:48AM: George has a nightmare and comes into our room crying. The hell if I'm putting any effort into settling him back into his own bed. Into our bed between us he goes.
• 1:52AM: "Mommy, I need my ninnies." Ah. He came into our room without time to grab his two beloved blankets, so up I get to trek into his room and find his ninnies. One of them is wet from a leaky sippy cup of water. Oh well. I warn him that it's wet, but what can I do? He doesn't seem to care.
• 1:55AM: I'm back to sleep.
• 2:15AM: I'm punched in the back by a writhing, sleeping toddler. Rearrange toddler and resume my sleeping.
• 4:25AM: The monitor goes off. Van is awake again! In the wailing words of Dennis Quaid in a collaborative prank with Ellen, "Why me God? Whyyyyyyy?" I promptly fall back asleep.

(The "Why me, God?" part is at 2:40 if you aren't interested in the rest, but the whole thing really is funny.)

•  4:29AM: Oh yeah. Van is crying. Woops, I meant to get up and check on him and accidentally fell back asleep. On my way to his room, he falls quiet! Relieved, I tiptoe back to bed.
• 4:43AM: Nope, he's definitely up. This time I am too, for a second nightly feeding with a kid who typically sleeps away the night. What the??
• 4:45AM: Complain to the FB world.
• 5:13AM: Back into bed. Now I can set my alarm back to 6:15 because Van has drunk all my milk and I will have nothing left to pump, so I may as well eliminate that part from my morning routine. 
• 5:35AM: I wake to the sound of Silas walking down the hall to our bedroom. A boy who rarely wets the bed, he has of course wet the bed on this very night, the night before my workday. 
• 5:45AM: Back into bed, where I sleep soundly until my alarm goes off 30 minutes later.

I don't want to piece together how little sleep that is because I've had less than that for longer periods of time. The point is that my kids, who often do have me up in the middle of the night for their individual needs, seem to conspire to all need something en masse on the nights before I'm expected to listen deeply for many hours of the day to clients with all sorts of problems ranging from depression to active psychosis. Really, kids? Do you somehow know that I'm going to be away from you for the day and you're trying to make up for the lost time? I love my children dearly, or else I wouldn't beg to be home with them six days a week; home is really where I want to spend my time. But come on kids, leave me be on Monday night! I want to sleep, so stop the antics! Sweet Brown said it best: "Ain't nobody got time for that!" Until my children receive this message and change accordingly, however, I best just do without the sleep and then go get me a cold pop Jesus the next morning in order to make it through the day. My hat's off to working moms.