Ilija (ee-lee-ya)

I’m taking the first rare opportunity of a quiet apartment to write a quick message.  Maia and dad are out running around while Ilija sleeps.  I have the sense to savor this time because I know it will pass.  Soon he won’t be as sleepy and I will have two little whipper-snappers to manage full-tilt.  Right now, he sleeps A LOT.  Yes, he wakes at night but it’s not so bad.  I am still amazed that he is here.  I had not expected him at least until this upcoming weekend and I thought nature would be tricky enough to have him come even later than that.

I don’t know how much of this I will get down.  Please forgive spelling mistakes and bad sentence structure.  It all started at midnight last Saturday.  I started leaking, but very slowly.  Pregnant women sometimes lose bladder control.  Yes, life sucks in that way.  I thought he was just really low and pressing on my bladder.  It continued the next day when we went to the National Gallery for a spectacular children’s program focused on the works of Matisse.  Maia LOVED it.  I highly recommend it and it runs for the next few months with a new artist each month.  Anyhoo, back to my story.

I’m leaking and then I finally even gush a little.  TMI!  Sorry, you choose to read this blog.  I called the midwives later in the afternoon.  Labor was not in full-swing.  I was crampy and I figure they will just tell me to sleep as much as I can that night.  No, such luck.  I had to go to the hospital ASAP.  She had the sense to realize that my water had broken and it had.

Sadly, Maia didn’t get to see the birth.  It was for the best, though.  She wasn’t too bummed.  After all, she has her little brother now.  I have only good things to say about GW Hospital and Wisdom Midwifery.  All in all, it was an incredibly positive experience, albeit a much more medicalized experience than the first time around.  We declined just about every procedure but they poked and prodded him anyway.

(NURSING BREAK)

Back to the beginning- we arrived and were admitted to one of the great delivery rooms complete with birthing tub.  My water had broken.  This was it.  I was not going back home before having the baby.  Labor had still not pushed into full gear, however.  The midwife had some very valid concerns about waiting too long to get the baby out.  She wanted to give me Cytotec.  I didn’t want to have it but Pitocin wasn’t all that appealing either.  I negotiated waiting until midnight for the smallest dose of Cytotec possible.  Labor still didn’t go into full gear.  I won’t go into the full reasons here but it was clear to me that I needed to take something at this point.  It was a gamble.  There was no correct decision but this one was the best choice at the moment.

They gave me a tiny oral dose of Cytotec.  I tried to rest.  Contractions started fairly quickly after that.  The midwife was amazing.  She stayed right there with me from when things kicked into gear.  My doula was also very helpful.  J slept a fair bit but I was glad to have a real birth team.  He was a rock when the pushing started, however.  He also added some comic relief with his snoring during the rushes/contractions.

I did use belly dancing as my core coping mechanism.  The contractions on Cytotec are more pronounced.  Despite that, the belly dancing was incredibly helpful.  I had a tool I could use throughout each wave.  Not only did it cut down on all discomfort but labor was FUN.  I’m not kidding.  I felt like I was surfing.  I could do this without a problem.  It really was this intense feeling that required my full attention but it wasn’t pain in any basic sense of the word.  It was like surfing a big wave of intensity.  I highly, highly recommend belly dancing for all birth preparation.

(Another NURSING BREAK)

Things became a lot more difficult once pushing began.  I had hoped to do a water birth.  That was not possible.  Instead I pushed for about two hours on all-fours leaning over the headboard of the bed.  It was a good position.  J was next to me the whole time.  He kept talking to me and made sure I had a cold cloth on the back of my neck.  I had the whole team chanting, “Open, open, down, down” and they kept telling me I was doing “just great”.  Belly dancing didn’t help at this stage.  The Cytotec caused some elephantine pushing urges and left very little time for a rest between these urges.  I lost my composure within that second hour.  I even asked for an episiotomy.  No, begged.  No was the reply and the midwife was firm.  There was another issue, my perenium was incredibly tight.

If you are pregnant and doing kegels, STOP.  Save the kegels for post-partum.  If you are doing some kind of yoga that required a “root-lock”, STOP.  You will NOT benefit from having a very strong, firm perenium during the pushing phase of labor.  There is research to back this up and I am not going to bother to attach it here but trust me.  I kept pushing and finally his head came through.  It was a massive output of effort at the back end.  He was fine.  I spent some time shaking and turned a little blue.  It was a bit of what happens to marathon runners who just over-do it.  I was fine, though.  I tore a little but not much.

I thought I would rush out of the hospital in a few hours possibly.  Instead, I stayed for something over 24 hours.  It was nice to have an adjustable bed and nurses to bring whatever I needed.  Soon I felt much better.  Now we are home and we are four.  My mind is still blown.  He is so adorable.  I wish you could see him right here on my lap sleeping on the luna lullaby pillow (much, much better than Boppy).  Breastfeeding has been infinitely easier this time around.  They say it is like that with a second baby but I must also thank the great support and emphasis on nursing provided by the midwives and nursing staff from when Ilija was born.

I FEEL INCREDIBLY BLESSED.  NEXT CHALLENGE- MOVE TO KIEV.

39 week belly

I’ll have J take a picture this weekend for the sake of posterity.  I’m sleeping at night.  That is the big positive difference between these pregnancies.  I do get up at around 2:00 am for a couple of hours (to study Russian, eat, and do “stuff”) most nights.  They say that is just hormones.  Thankfully, I can then sleep in until 6:00 or 7:00 am when Maia wakes up.  I need to keep switching sides because of that nagging pain that comes up in my hips but it’s not like last time.  I think last time was the result of more weight and pelvic misalignment (that was corrected this time by the chiropractor).  This time, though, I have heartburn that comes and goes.  You need to get up with it and I burp around the apartment like a 15-year-old boy (or outside, at the playground, the store, wherever).  I am the uncouth pregnant woman but that’s the only way to feel better.

He is still down in proper position.  I am still wearing an itchy belly band all the time (when not in the shower or drying the band).  I freaked out a week ago when I wash/dried it and he seemed to move every which way.  He’s turned.  He’s turned.  What is wrong with him?  He may have turned but he turned right back around and now he is very low and ready.

I have eased up on my dietary restrictions now and again.  I realized that things will get worse when he’s born.  Then I’ll be on the full-blown anti-colic diet with no wheat, soy, or dairy along with no onions, garlic, citrus, raw veggies, or cruciferous veggies.  That will pass.  You may wonder if it’s worth it.  The only way you can wonder that is if you didn’t have a baby with colic.  It’s hard enough dealing with a newborn but nothing sets you up for madness like hours of daily colic.  I think of how it must have been back in the village when you could call your friendly neighbor and she would help you out while you walked in the woods or something.  It’s not like that anymore.  Now that friendly neighbor charges at least $20/hour and you don’t know if you can trust her because you have no idea who she is beyond some references and a resume.  Do you have a community?  Right now I envy you.

How old will I be when he is born?- Maia asks.  You’ll still be 3 and a half.  Can I put him to sleep?  Yes, you can try.  I’ll hold him as soon as he’s born, she says.  I won’t let anyone else hold him.

We have a picture of her on the fridge when she was only a few hours old with the headphones on for her hearing test.  It seems so long ago and not really.  I breastfed her for two years and nine months.  That’s behind me as well.  I had no idea I would go that long.  It eased all of our transitions and she was NEVER sick.  Her “sick” was one single scary high-fever night in El Salvador during which the embassy nurse drove over from her home to give me a suppository because she would not swallow the nasty kid’s Tylenol that I had to open that night.  The next day she was perfectly fine.  We got to know the medical staff well, though, because of the dog bite and a bunch of bumps resulting from a very active toddler/preschooler.  I can only hope this one is a little calmer but I will take vivacious over boring.

So, my bag is somewhat packed for the birth.  I have a packing list up for J to see.  I don’t have extras of most things.  I’ll need to finish packing right before.  We have an ipod playlist.  Maia’s bag is more packed than mine.  I bought some snacks to take along.  I have my awesome doula-in-training to call when the time comes.  My parents are completely in the dark but I know they realize the time is pretty close.  Just a little and there will be four of us and then we’ll be in Kiev and then who knows….

 

Pushing on through to the end….

I hear that some women actual take muscle relaxants and get an epidural for an external version.  I’m not a superhero when it comes to pain.  Really.  I did neither.  It’s not painful.  It’s very uncomfortable and you need to relax while it’s uncomfortable for, maybe, two minutes.  After that it’s done and you sit there with pillows propped under your knees and they monitor your baby’s heartbeat for an hour.  The next day, you feel like someone beat you up from the inside.  Where are the muscle relaxants and epidurals then?

One book has helped me the most during this breech phase of the pregnancy- “Spiritual Midwifery” by Ina May Gaskin.  It’s on its fourth edition with new content but still full of a bunch of wacky hippie pics of people “getting high on birth”.  It also has a plethora of valuable practical information from a women who has more experience birthing babies naturally than anyone else in this hemisphere.  She birthed breech babies, helped women do exercises to turn them, and even just manually did external versions if the mom looked relaxed enough.  Well, it’s done manually in the hospital as well but you have all those monitors going in case the baby does not like it but the idea is the same.  If the baby is meant to turn, it will turn.

Now I have this itchy belly band encouraging him to stay positioned and I wear it ALL THE TIME.  People ask me if I’m ready now all the time.  Yes.  I am sick of being pregnant.  I know some women bliss out during this time but that’s not me.  It is a fascinating process but I feel oppressed by this growing life within my belly rather than enraptured.  It’s weird and at this point we are both uncomfortable.  As to having all my ducks in a row in preparation, I’m getting there.  A winter baby is so very different and the Twilight Zone nature of my life makes things all that much stranger.  We leave when other people would be settling in to parenting to an entirely new environment.  I also continue to shelter and play interference with all “loved ones” in the area because they can’t help at all.  On the bright side, I hope the daily four-part public transport visits with a preschooler are over now that he is in proper position.  It’s ROUGH not having a car in the DC-area, in case you did not know (especially when you feel like you are going to pop).

Maia has been a trooper through all of this.  She has also reverted back to her extreme OCD 3-year-old reacting self in the face of changes.  God forbid you don’t make breakfast the way she expects it or you forget to put her hat below the stroller or you breath improperly.  “I don’t love you!”  can melt into “Hug me!”  back to “Get away!” and then on to “Play with me!”  Pretty much all advice can be thrown out the window when our lives are in such a transitional state.  Kiev will be rough in the beginning (even without a new baby).  No one holds your hand or leads a welcome party in the FS.  I expect the regular process of adjustment but at least we’ll have furniture, clothes, a car, new connections, classes for preschoolers, gyms, pools, city cafes, and an environment that will be stable for four years.  You know, a life.

Breech

The baby is breech and I am trying not to freak out now at 34 weeks. He isn’t always breech. He keeps moving around but he won’t settle into that ideal head down and facing the pubic bone position. So, I’m doing a whole lot of THIS

http://spinningbabies.com/

and daily headstands. I also crawl around like a crab, do cat/cow, have Maia sing to the baby, avoid sitting back or sitting in cars at all, and I ask him to turn around all day long. Let me not mention that I keep complaining that my belly feels like it is going to pop. He sometimes twists around so that I think a leg will explode from my side or a head or a something-else. I hear that I shouldn’t panic and there is enough time. The last resort is an external baby turning procedure that supposedly hurts but is fairly effective.

Sadly, no doctor will touch a breech delivery in the DC-area (or pretty much any US-area) these days. There is one doctor on the verge of retirement who does it when he can at a nearby hospital. (No surprise but he is from the Ivory Coast.) This used to be a common practice but now it’s not even taught in medical school. The family friend who is taking care of Maia during the birth was a home breech birth and her daughter was a vaginal hospital breech birth. There are options for me but I don’t want to lay them out here and I don’t really want to think about them right now. I just hope the little guy turns and stays there….

Meanwhile, I’m huge. Maia is the most excited 3-year-old you will ever meet and insists that she will be only one to hold the baby, put him to sleep, and change him. I am also getting ready to leave. He will be born and we will be actively moving on almost immediately. No word yet about where we will live in Kiev but I am hoping for a nice apartment next to a huge park in the center of town. I am still getting up pre-dawn to study Russian. I’m grateful for Rosetta Stone but I am sure I will show up and have no clue how to communicate. It would be nice to have a live person rather than a computer software program. Anyhoo, I should be able to get by at the most basic level.

Now- turn baby, turn baby, turn baby….

I am so very pregnant. This picture made me cry.

http://blogs.babble.com/being-pregnant/2011/11/21/national-geographic-photo-of-the-year-is-a-birth-photo/

Gas and Thanksgiving

Having a baby in Winter is a brand new experience.  To put it as stupidly as possible, you have to keep the kid warm.  Maia was naked except for a diaper for two months.  Now I’m trying to gather the least amount of stuff possible while still managing to keep a baby happy and healthy.  Oh, and add the whole gypsy migrant thing to the whole mix.  The logistics of our life are a little weird, I realize.  I showed up with no sweaters and there were no sweaters in the small shipment we were allowed.  So, what do you do?  You go to a thrift store and you buy Fall/Winter clothes.  You buy a new wardrobe, basically.  What was in the shipment?  Toys, baby carriers, Maia’s Ikea table and chairs, some books, some newborn baby clothes for summer, and that’s it.

To be trite but accurate, we are very lucky to have a job in this economy.  I read an article in the Washington Post with pictures of military families standing in line for a free turkey.  I don’t feel underprivileged in any way but I do feel like we live in the Twilight Zone.  I have conversations with Real people that run in circles.  So, you had to drive your husband with a Zip car because he was on crutches?  It must have been his right foot?  (No.  It was his left.  We have no car.)  How does he get to work then usually?  (He takes a bus.)  Hmmm….  It must be hard to get on and off.  Right?  (This isn’t a school bus.  It doesn’t drop you off door to door, you idiot.)

OK, I don’t say that.  I just think it.  You can replay this kind of exchange for any topic ranging from furniture to whether my kid goes to preschool to baby supplies.

Onto related baby news, I am not having a homebirth.  It was a logistical nightmare for me to organize and I don’t have a support network.  Yes, I’m from here but it’s different in DC.  I also made it up to the top of the waiting list for January at Wisdom Midwifery and Whitney Pinger is a goddess. She is a Yale-educated CNM (certified nurse midwife) with 30 years of experience and rules her roost.  Maia can attend the birth, there is no minimal stay post-birth, I can labor and have the baby in a birth tub, and there is no hospital time-table that I need to adhere to.  The first and last ones on that list were most important to me.  Maia wants to catch the baby.  She is as ready as you will ever see a three-year-old and I will not deny her this experience.  I also know way too many women who were hauled off for an emergency whatever because they didn’t dilate at the hospital rate or they pushed for too long.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/41733/real-midwives-of-dc/

http://www.gwdocs.com/obgyn-obstetrics-gynecology/whitney-pinger

Now with that decision made, I can get on with obsessing about my dietary changes.  Now I am not eating any sugar.  Yeah.  I don’t even know what that means.  I just know that I can no longer eat any chocolate, even that very dark, organic, 85% cocoa stuff I was dipping in crunchy peanut butter a few times per day.  I literally cried in line at Trader Joe’s the day after I went sugar-free when J wanted to buy dark chocolate peanut butter cups.  Please, not in front of me.  Sugar addict?  Evidently.  This is much more difficult for me that the whole no soy/dairy/wheat thing.  And BTW, my blood sugar is fine.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Autumn

Soy, wheat and dairy-free

 

I have now been soy, wheat and dairy-free for six weeks.  SIX WEEKS!!!  This is my preemptive attempt to minimize the chances that Maia’s little brother has colic.  If it works, it’s worth it.  If you doubt that then you have not dealt with colic.  I can’t relate to parents of calm and sleepy babies AT ALL.  I have no idea what it’s like to be them and I have to admit that I have some envy.  In many ways I feel like I missed that baby phase with Maia.  First it was the colic and then she was so very mobile early on.  I had a toddler before others had a kid that was even crawling.  Maybe this time I will have a calmer baby and I too can say that my kid just sleeps all day or that I almost forgot him in the car seat while heading out the door.

It’s not difficult to be soy, wheat and dairy-free in the DC-area.  Let me qualify that statement.  I have options I wouldn’t have in, say, El Salvador but there is definitely a lot more temptation.  At Trader Joe’s I have to pass up the milk  chocolate covered potato chips, all of the frozen prepared foods, ice creams, yogurts, and baked goods.  I miss cheese.  There is this shop in Del Ray (Alexandria) called Cheesetique that is heaven for cheese-addicts.  On the day before I went SWD-free, I bought a sliver of their best creamy blue-cheese and I ate it on a fresh, half-baguette drizzled with honey.  HEAVEN.  I dream of it still.

The bread is also difficult.  I can buy a frozen loaf of gluten-free bread but it is this bizarre slightly gelatinous solid block even when toasted in the oven.  You can’t really make french toast out of it (using eggs and hemp milk) but I try.  I even use it to make grilled cheese with Diaya “cheese” that actually melts.  Desperate?  Yes.  When we go to Kiev, a lot of this stuff will not be available.  I can still order some great mixes from King Arthur to get me through some rough spots.  I dread it but I welcome an environment without the temptation of chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds and biscotti.

On the bright side, I feel better physically.  Some people do this diet for the sake of their own health and this side-benefit has been surprising.  I have suspected that I have some gluten allergies for a long time now.  Cutting that out along with the soy and dairy has given me a much happier belly and has “made me less puffy” according to J.

You can’t have everything in life.  We passed a New Haven-style pizza place just yesterday and I thought of clams, garlic, parmesan and chewy crust.  I miss it but I am finally focusing on the positive rather than the negative in this diet.  I will continue to eat this way at least through the first three months of the baby’s life but I am now considering making this a more permanent way of eating.  Maybe I’ll allow some 0ff-days or off-meals but I never want to go back to that body full of tasty foods I can’t eat now that also got sick at the drop of a hat, felt achy, and bloated.  Ironically, that was in my 20s.  Zambia was the best thing that ever happened for my immune system and our diet there was basically SWD-free without all the extras.

Mumble, mumble…. sigh….

 

25 weeks

Watch me grow.  I know I don’t seem all that big in this picture but I definitely feel the bulk.  Soon it will be overwhelming.  January is right around the corner.

25 weeks on the 40-year road

I am writing this during the brief time that exists between Russian studies and Maia waking up.  This morning it’s a little longer because I keep getting a 4111 error message and I don’t know how to fix it.  I am worried that I am going to become a “I have no idea how these darn things work” person before I know it.  Does this happen naturally?  What can you do to fight it?  Really, I pulled up what I am supposed to do to fix it and I have NO IDEA.  I don’t know where to start.

Meanwhile, I am huge.  I am tired.  I am also becoming a little scared of January.  I need to get all of my ducks in a row by 36 weeks.  It’s the second time around and things could go a bit earlier, they say.  Last time I was a week late and this is very normal.  This time I am doing it all at home with three forks, three spoons, three knives, one set of sheets, and no couch.  My midwife came over and that last part was her biggest concern.  You have no couch?  Are you getting a couch?  No.  OK.  I am hopefully getting a full-sized mattress that a friend is not using and hopefully that can hold four extra people.  One of those people still does not know that I hope/pray she will be here to tend to Maia.  Oh, did I tell you that my parents have no idea I am having a homebirth?  Yep.  It will stay that way because I don’t need a hysterical mother because that mother was HYSTERICAL when it was a birthing center birth next to a hospital.

I am slowly pulling together what I need until we leave for Kiev.  It is so much especially since it will be cold.  My theme is “as little as possible” and preferably organic if it is going to touch his skin.  Thank God for the great thrift store that has provided a snow suit and a bouncy chair.  Otherwise I am finding some good deals on-line.

All of this planning has been a good distraction from an impending birthday.  Birthdays are hard for me, not because of the passing of time, but because they are painful reminders of the lack of Vesna.  It creeps up at inopportune times.  We were reading at the library before storytime and Maia chose a book about twin girls getting their own beds for the first time.  The first night they sleep alone but in the same room, one is scared.  It’s dark and she reaches her hand out and the other one takes it.  That was enough to set me off right there at the low, wooden table between the bookshelves near the nursery rhymes and Halloween posters on the wall.  Like the sweet empathetic child she is, Maia hugged me while I pulled myself together.

Let me say about this birthday, it is significant.  I do feel like I have entered a different stage of life.  It’s not depressing or anything like I imagined.  I can look back on my mottled life and I, largely, have no regrets.  Physically, I feel strong but I know that the roads diverge right here.  How you treat your body matters and this is when it begins to show.  When I look in Maia’s face, I see a 40-year-old woman.  Crazy?  It passes very quickly even if it’s packed with activity.  You realize that life is very brief and there are 90-year-olds walking around wondering how the hell it all passed by.  Where did the time go?  I am trying to do what I can to help her on her path and make sure I am not something she has to get over.  If I do that, I’m a success as a parent.

I raise my glass to another great 40 years (or more)!

Russian, or a crotch shot of a complete stranger

So, I’m picking up the old reins of Russian again.  I’m excited and a little daunted.  I know our adjustment in Kiev will be greatly helped by my language abilities.  This is the irony of life in the Foreign Service.  J would probably be just dandy if he spoke almost none of the local language.  I’m the one interacting with REAL people (the common guy/gal on the street rather than a hyper-educated local who is fluent in English).  I’ll tell you how it goes.   I have Rosetta Stone and I’ll use it in the wee hours of the morning if/when Maia is sleeping.  I know it will get to be hard/impossible when the baby is born.  I need to start now.

I have a couple of years of Russian under my belt but it has been a long time (several years) since I used it.  Well, there was the conference in St. Petersburg when I was supposed to act as my former advisor’s translator.  That was easy-peasy because she is the most mousey traveller I have ever encountered.  I need to be functional in this language now rather than have the ability to order a meal or guide her through a bus trip.

I talked to my cousin’s wife who lived in Kiev for over five years.  They loved it there.  As things go, it was a helpful and extremely useless conversation.  Imagine if someone asks you what it’s like to live in your place of residence or somewhere where you lived for a few years.  She had two kids there and didn’t go anywhere really.  They lived in the center of town and she shopped in two places almost exclusively.  All in all, life there will be much easier for us than it was in El Salvador.  There is no doubt about that but there will be new challenges.  Winter, for one.  It has been cold here for a few days I am entirely unprepared.  I don’t have waterproof shoes and I have ONE sweater.  Yep.  So, I hope to go to this amazing thrift store this week to see what I can get for super cheap and then list out what I actually need to buy.  There is so much!  You have no idea what you need for cold and wet until it hits you and we have lived without socks for two years.

On a side note, life here in Alexandria is still divine.  I still wake up thanking God we are here and not in San Salvador.  I started obsessing about Nelson Mandela while we were there.  The man was in prison for so many years but managed to keep his sanity and productivity.  I am not crazy.  I am not comparing myself to him at all.  I felt like I had the tiniest sliver of what it must be like to languish in a prison cell for an extended period of time.  I also realized that there are plenty of Americans willing to trade their personal freedom for McDonalds, KFC, and Wendy’s (and a relatively quick trip back home).