8 down, 1 to go....

Our first prenatal visit with our doula, Rachel, went really well on Thursday night. She asked some great directed questions to each of us that really got us thinking individually about the labor/delivery/birth process...like what type of experience did we want, what was the most important characteristic for us, what was our biggest fear, etc. It jump-started a nice conversation later between Walter and me about what each of us expected and what we were concerned about heading into labor.

She also loaned me a birthball (a large, inflatable therapy/exercise ball) to sit on and practice with. The birthball is supposed to open up your pelvis and relieve lower back pressure. Best of all, it fits nicely under the bar in our kitchen next to our chairs, so I've taken to sitting on it in the evenings for dinner. Needless to say, Dido is NOT a big fan of the birthball, especially when Walter rolls it toward her. I imagine she had an Indiana Jones-like experience as she ran down the hallway to get away from the giant, rolling ball racing towards her.

Something else that Rachel also helped us figure out is that SuperSchwarm is LOA (Left Occiput Anterior), meaning that his/her head is definitely down in my pelvis (as I suspected from hiccups) while the back is curved along my left abdomen, knees around my belly button and feet under my right rib.
Not me, but a useful illustration

Our doula, Rachel, said that the majority of babies who are positioned LOA in the last month go on to turn correctly during labor. This means avoiding painful back labor (when the baby arrives "sunny side up" as they say in our childbirth class). That's reassuring!

We also had a quickie ultrasound (no printed pictures from this one though!) on Friday afternoon during our prenatal doctor's appointment (our last with the resident clinic). The baby's heartbeat was strong (in the upper 120s) and definitely head down and LOA (confirming Rachel's earlier assessment). I was also routinely tested for Strep B. If the test comes back positive, then this means that I will be given IV antibiotics during labor to prevent any transmission to the baby. The resident said that approximately 15% of pregnant women actually test positive for Strep B (and they don't test for it earlier since infections can clear on their own, given sufficient time). She also confirmed that the antibiotic ointment they give newborns in their eyes is for chalymdia and gonorrhea, not Strep B (as a colleague of mine was trying to argue earlier this week).

In nursery news, we have the cradle fully assembled and are in the process of getting curtains hung. I am still waiting to get my rocking chair cushions from Sweet Home, AL. Once we get those details taken care of, I will have a post of nursery decorating pictures from start to finish!

We have our next-to-last childbirth class on Tuesday night and our "Surviving the First 40 Days" (or How Not to Kill Your Baby) class on Thursday evening. Can't wait for that one--I hope that they fill me in on diaper-changing since that's still pretty much a mystery (and there aren't that many parenting books that include chapters on (cloth) diaper changes!).

Supposedly, I am as big as I'm going to get since I have the maximum amount of amniotic fluid floating around in me at this point. According to what I've read, as the baby gets bigger (approximately 1 oz/day in weight gain from here on out), the amount of amniotic fluid gets smaller.


Plus, the baby will start to descend ("lighten") into my pelvis which will make the "baby bump" appear less large. Considering I got up to go to the bathroom 5 times on Friday night, I can't say I'm looking forward to that part!

35 Weeks and some Updates

Hey, everyone! Walter and I are at week 35 (that means only 5 more until my due date, 8/25/08). A few updates in our childbirth preparations (apologies for the long post):

We have another prenatal appt scheduled for tomorrow (July 25th) which will be our last with our old clinic. We are transferring care to another women's clinic that is also allied with UCDavis Medical Center, to a physician who is more supportive of natural childbirth, Dr. Gillott. He was recommended to us by a couple in our childbirth/delivery class who really, really loved him and found him supportive of their desire to have a natural delivery.

We have been concerned with the prevailing attitude at at UCDavis Medical Center, especially after our tour of their labor/delivery suites. They are the best trauma center in the region and a teaching hospital which mean two things: 1) if you're in serious trouble, you need to be at UCDMC and 2) folks who are the most up-to-date on the latest medical technology will be working with you. However, when that attitude translates into labor/delivery, it means that what should be a natural process of letting your body do what it can do turns into a medical procedure to be managed and monitored.

Walter and I stayed after the tour and talked to the nurse who led it who freely admitted that UCDMC's c-section rate was 33-34% (higher than the 25% national average he quoted on the tour) and that their standard operating procedure was IV's and constant fetal monitoring. When I pointed out that constant fetal monitoring had been shown to lead to an increased c-section rate, he shrugged and nodded his head. I had a horrible experience with an IV at the ER in Toledo a few years back. And, from what I have read/researched, they are really only necessary for the administration of pain meds (which I don't want) or antibiotics (which I hope I don't need) or to counteract dehydration (which can be dealt with using less intrusive measures by an attentive delivery staff). If I end up needing an IV, I don't see why I can't have one put in then (esp when I understand exactly why it's necessary!).

After the tour was over, I cried. And cried. And felt trapped when I called my insurance company was told that I could only deliver at UCDMC because they would not approve my changing my primary care physician to one aligned with another hospital. Walter and I discussed using another birthing facility that wasn't covered by our insurance, but that's taking a tremendous chance that everything MUST go well. So, we have spent the last two weeks doing what we can to ensure that our experience is as positive as it can be and as close to what we want as possible.

To that end, we hired a woman to be our doula. She is meeting with us for two prenatal visits (our first prenatal visit is tonight actually) to help establish our birth plan and get to know us better. Then, she will also be with us through the labor/delivery process and then visit twice postpartum, too. California state law mandates a minimum 48 hr hospital stay after a normal vaginal delivery and 96 hr stay after a c-section, so her first postpartum visit will be on Day Three after SuperSchwarm's arrival. She's also a lactation specialist (read: breastfeeding expert) and is currently a student midwife, too.

She has been a professional doula for 7 years and has attended over 170 births in that time period. Given that the best outcomes (i.e., least interventions) occur when the mother labors at home for as long as possible, I feel much more reassured that someone with so much experience will be there with me, helping me through the process. Plus, she'll be with us at the hospital to support us and provide us with the personal attention and care that we (more than likely) won't be getting from the professional medical staff. She has delivered babies at UCDMC before, too, and is familiar with their operating procedures which will help us figure out what we're okay with and what we're willing to fight for.

To help ease the transition once we're home, I've also made arrangements with a diaper delivery service here in town. They supply a diaper pail, liner bags, and cloth diapers with once a week diaper pick-up/drop-off. So, all we have to do is take the dirty diaper off SuperSchwarm, drop it (UNwashed) into the pail, and then stick the liner bag outside once a week to get clean diapers. We decided that we're going to try using cloth diapers at home where they're convenient and disposable diapers when we leave the house and they're convenient (no lugging around dirty cloth diapers to bring them back home). I will report on how it goes!

And, I've hired a woman to come in twice a month this fall and do general housekeeping (including laundry and beds). The laundry/beds thing is key because most maid services won't do that and I like that she's essentially an independent contractor, so I'm not supporting minimally paid slave labor. Having worked as a cleaning person one summer during graduate school (great way to lose 20 lbs in 6 weeks btw), I know how hard a job it is and I want to reward people adequately for the job they're doing for me. She's also licensed, bonded, and has her fingerprints on file with the Sacramento County Sheriff's office, so everything is above board and proper.

The reason we hired her (at least for this fall when we're adjusting to our new post-baby lives) is that Walter will be working full-time, in addition to teaching 3 hours a night on Monday, Tuesday, AND Wednesday nights. I know that I will have more time, or so everyone says, because "babies sleep a lot," but I will need that time to catch up on research and get some articles submitted to journals and conferences (especially if I want to go up for early tenure in Fall 2009!). And Walter will be too exhausted after working two full-time jobs (my regular teaching load is 3 classes/semester, so that IS two full-time jobs if you stop and think about it) in addition to a new baby. So, we are using some of the money that he's getting paid to have some household help this fall. Best of all, she'll come as (in)frequently as I want her, so I can adjust everything to our needs as we get settled in.

Our childcare plans for the fall semester are pretty well planned-out (for the most part). I will take care of the baby during the day while Walter is at work and during the evenings that Walter is teaching. Once my paid leave runs out in mid-November, Walter and I will be handing off the baby at school on the evenings that I'm teaching (MW). Our childcare plans for the spring semester are still being ironed out, but hopefully I can report some positive developments on that front soon. It is somewhat difficult because many childcare centers don't like to take children younger than 1 year of age, so we are cobbling together what we can until next August when SuperSchwarm is older. Wish us luck!

Cruising on Auto-pilot?

The nursery is still a work in progress. The walls, ceiling, and closet doors have been painted, but the cradle still lacks a dowel (we have purchased the dowel, but Walter has yet to actually put it all together). And the curtains have been purchased, but we have not hemmed them for the window, nor bought/installed curtain hardware to hang them on. I have custom-ordered cushions for the rocking chair (it's an odd size) from a woman in Sweet Home, Alabama (ironic, I know!), but it should be a few more weeks before those arrive, too. Once we have everything in its final place and/or assembled, I am planning to post a loooong post with lots of pictures at various stages of nursery-decorating.

But, until then, you will have to be satisfied with pictures of our car modification(s) for SuperSchwarm. Walter noticed that our backseat gets a LOT of sun, especially for someone in a rear-facing car seat. So, I found a VW sunshade from a VW dealer in Washington state that (according to the website) is supposed to fit in my Jetta. Once the sunshade arrived, we realized that it was for a Passat and not a Jetta, but Walter was able to retro-fit it so that it works well.

We had to take off the back interior lining underneath the rear window.

Walter carefully measured for the sunshade base (notice mandatory beer in his hand).

We drilled holes and installed the base--so far, no problem!


Then, we had to install this little clips which is where the project hit a bump. These were engineered for the Passat, so we are currently using something else to hold the sunshade up instead.

As you can see though, the sunshade works well! Definitely blocks out the sun.


While we were out and messing around in the car, we decided to experiment with installing the car seat we received at the baby shower (thank you, Mom, Dad, & Nanny!). My car has the predecessor to the LATCH system (called "ISOFIT") and it worked out well with the car seat.

It took some fiddling with the base to figure out how everything worked together, but the end product is worth it.


Notice that the front seats are pushed ALL the way back in that photo! The Maxi-Cosi does fit in a small car!

We also received a baby gift of some static-cling sun shade thingies (thank you, Scott & Jennifer!) this week and Walter and I put them on the two back side windows as well. You can't see it well on the passenger side, but look through the car at the window behind the driver.
Here's a tip: when installing static-cling window thingies, use a squee-gee to eliminate the bubbles and wrinkles for a smooth fit (I felt very Martha when I made that discovery this afternoon).

After experimenting with the car seat, we took it out and brought it back inside (don't need it just yet!). But, we are leaving the sunshades in place to get used to driving around Sacramento w/them in the car.

34 week update

It's been a few weeks since I have posted pictures of SuperSchwarm's progress via my abdomen.

What I have noticed lately is that it's harder and harder to sit down properly. If I try to sit with my back straight, there's this extra, not-quite-fat-roll right under my breasts that makes it uncomfortable to sit for long(er) periods of time. I think it's actually feet because that's the area that moves when SuperSchwarm is moving around and from what I've read, s/he is supposed to be head-down by now. I do know that when there are hiccups, they're definitely below my belly button which would suggest that his/her head is down where it's supposed to be.

yeah, yeah, I'm shiny--it's been over 105 this week in Sacramento! Gimme a break!

Wouldn't it be a crazy thought to consider someone carrying YOU around for 6+ weeks upside down??



Anyway, I think the "baby bump" is definitely sticking out more than it used to, but Walter doesn't think I've dropped yet (what folks call "the lightening"). Apparently when that happens, I will be able to breathe more easily and the urge to go to the bathroom will become that much stronger. Joy--can't wait for that.

The Baby Book

I have been filling out a baby book for SuperSchwarm and realized this morning when describing it to a friend that some of you might like to see it. I ordered it from rag and bone bindery. I really like that it's bound with ribbon and not with glues that can degrade over time or off-gas and damage precious memories. The pages are acid-free and heavy paper, and I've been filling it out with an acid-free pen and using acid-free scrapbooking adhesive. I made copies of all the pictures that I've included in the book by scanning them into Target's photo copy machine. There are still some obvious things to fill-in. I need to get a copy of one of Walter's baby photos that his parents sent to include and Walter still needs to fill out his "first thoughts" section. And the front page with SuperSchwarm's name is blank...although who wouldn't want to have their babybook read "SuperSchwarm"? :)

Otherwise, it's pretty much filled-out until SuperSchwarm arrives!

the outside of the book:

the pages in order of appearance:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Even though SuperSchwarm has yet to officially make his/her appearance, Walter and I have been enjoying interacting with him/her. I feel fortunate to have the 24/7 opportunities, but it's also fun to see what happens when Walter joins in.

This afternoon, I was lying on the bed and he was tapping my lower abdomen to watch the ripples in my amniotic fluid move toward my belly button (which I had to admit was pretty cool when he got a mirror so I could watch it, too). The funny thing was how he woke up SuperSchwarm, who I think up to that moment had been sound asleep for a while (at least no movements I could feel). But after his/her daddy made the "room" start to pulse like a techno-beat disco, s/he was bouncing around like crazy.

Afterwards, Walter went outside to work on his car uninterrupted (Happy Anniversary, dear!) and I caught up on some reading from our childbirth delivery class and class work. Lying there on my side and feeling SuperSchwarm stretch or flex is such a neat feeling that's really hard to describe and I know that I'm going to miss it when it's no longer just us against the world.

As I type this, s/he is having a prolonged case of the hiccups! It feels like the very beginning of Jiffy-Pop when there's only a kernel or two that's actually popping--very faint but regular. The sensation is so strong, I feel like I should be able to hear him/her! It's almost hard to type, leaning up in bed with the laptop on my lap because SuperSchwarm is making my abdomen move around like the wave pool at Wet-N-Wild. I have a feeling those movements are only going to get bigger as the space become smaller....

For those keeping track, we are officially at 33 weeks today. Any baby born after 37 weeks is considered full-term with my due date in the 40th week. So, anywhere from 4-7 more weeks to go until the Grand Entrance of SuperSchwarm! Walter and I will try to get some recent photos posted so you can see the difference between now and week 30 (the last set of pictures).