Our Journey to a Home Birth

As many of you know, Alan and I, after years of struggling with infertility, are 10 weeks along with our first child.  YAY!

What you may not know is that We have decided to pursue a midwife-assisted home birth.  We do not intend on going to the hospital and meeting with an ob at all through our pregnancy and delivery.  We will still do all of the blood tests, ultrasounds, and checkups that are recommended for a birth, and we will have all of that medical knowledge at our fingertips, but we have chosen to take a more active role in our birth process.  The part that makes me happiest, is that Alan is just as enthusiastic about it as I am, and I can go to him when I'm having my questioning days and he is there to help remind me of the reasons we chose to this path..

Our midwife is Richelle Jolley, CPM.  You can view her website here.

If you are like the vast majority of people in America, you already think that we are insane for our choice, especially with this being our first birth and given our past struggles with infertility.  I'm sure the thought crosses your mind that we are risking both my life and our baby's life by being a 15 minute drive to a hospital when we deliver.  I'm sure the risks of fetal resuscitation, the cord being wrapped around the baby's neck, postpartum hemorrhage, and the lack of instant access to pain medication and antibiotics have also crossed your mind.   I bring these things up not to increase your worry for us, but to let you know that we have considered these options and are not going into this blindly.

And we are blissfully happy and content with our decision.  Seriously, blissed-out with it.  

It was a decision we came to with much prayer and research, and it is a decision that we will continue to research throughout this pregnancy.  If things change and we feel like we should go to the hospital, I will have no hesitation with going.  If we have to have an emergency C-section, so be it, because that it what the hospital is for.  I don't expect everyone to have a home birth, nor would I recommend it to everyone.  It is a personal choice that everyone needs to make for themselves, and I do not think less of anyone for choosing a hospital birth regardless of the reason.

I wanted to address the most common objections we have had in making our decision to have a home birth.


"You're so brave!  I could never do that!"
This one is one of the most common ones, and it always makes me chuckle a bit.  The truth is that I am far more scared of going to the hospital than I am of delivering at home.  At home I am far more in control of the situation than I would be at the hospital.  Here are a few of the things that I have seen forced on laboring women in the hospital that I will not have pressure to do at home:
Forced restriction to the bed - Most often because an epidural has been administered or because the fetal monitor has been screwed into the baby's head.
Forced Catheterization -  If you cannot move you cannot get up to pee.
Constant Fetal Monitoring - They literally screw a monitor into your baby's head, so that they can monitor them all the time. Studies have shown that it is not medically necessary for constant monitoring, and that frequent  with a belly monitor is just as safe, with no damage done to your child.
Forced Starvation - Most women do not feel up to eating during labor, but for for extended labors it is a good idea to eat if you feel up to it, even if it gets thrown up immediately.  That's a long time of intense physical activity to go without feeding your body.


Only One Delivery Position 
When you deliver in the hospital, you almost always are forced to deliver on your back with your legs up in the stirrups, which is the worst position for everyone but the doctor.  When you are on your back gravity is of no help to you and is an interference.  The baby must defy gravity to move up and over your tailbone, which means you have to push harder than you would if you were squatting or kneeling.  Not to mention that it is very hard to fully engage those pushing muscles on your back, rather than a more upright position.
Pressure for Interventions - Hospitals are businesses.  Their job is to get you in and out with as short of time possible, or if not to make the most money off of you while you are there.  The longer a labor progresses, the more you are pressured into things like Pitocin or an epidural, and the more interventions you have, the easier it is to have another.  This is fine if you want those interventions from the get-go, but we do not.  Even if you have an intervention-free birth plan, you will be pressured at a time where you are most vulnerable to make decisions based on your immediate animal instincts,  you are less likely to have the focus to read over the 10 page warning label for each medication, and when you ask the Dr what the risk is and he says "It's minimal" and you sign, you have no legal leg to stand on if that medication causes serious complications.  And you're crazy if you think you're going to be the only one pressured into a procedure that you do not want.  I have heard many stories of couples who have gone to the hospital for a delivery, and the husband was told he was risking his wife and child's lives by not doing a medically unnecessary procedure like a C-section.  My parents were told by they Dr with their second child that they could either have a c-section or get out of the hospital, because it was the only safe way to deliver.  My parents bravely left the hospital in the middle of labor, and went to a different hospital, where a few hours later my sister was born healthy and happy, with no ill effects from the vaginal delivery or the delay in getting to another hospital.  Not all, but some (most) Doctors will omit the truth, exaggerate, or outright lie to you to keep them in control of the birth.
Delivery is on the Doctor's Schedule, Not Your Body's - I have never heard of a doctor who will stay with their patient through the whole labor and delivery.  Never.  It's simply not possible for them to do so.  I have heard many stories of mothers who were ready to push, and were told to wait until the Dr arrived.  In one situation with my sister in law, my niece was crowning for 10 minutes waiting for the Dr to arrive, because the nurse was too scared to deliver without the Dr there.  Fortunately, everything turned out all right, and she miraculously had no ill effects, but she could easily have died while waiting for the Dr to get there and play catcher.   For all we knew the placenta could have detached prematurely (especially as she was given Pitocin, which drastically increases the risk of premature detachment), meaning that she would have been without life-sustaining oxygen for the full 10 minutes!  A Midwife does not leave you in the middle of a birth, and is ready for you to push when you are ready to push.

"You should have an epidural so that you don't have be in pain."
Call me crazy, but who says birth has to be that painful?  The hospital does a lot of things that INCREASE the pain of childbirth, including preventing a mother from walking/moving through labor, routinely doing episiotomies, forcing you to give birth on your back, and using drugs to cause labor to progress faster, which causes harder, longer, more painful contractions.  The hospital is also a very high stress environment, which can be worse to deal with than physical pain.  I plan on having a water birth, which many women say is better at soothing pain than an epidural, without all of the negative side effects and the lack of control.  There are also therapies like meditation, which help you key in to the rush of endorphins that happen with birth.  Do I expect to feel pain?  Yes I do, but I would rather have that pain on my own terms and in my own sacred space, where I can deal with it best.  I believe that a lot of the pain of childbirth is mental, and that if you believe it will hurt it will.

"What's the point of all of these medical advances if you don't use them?"
Medicine, in particular obstetrics, does not have a good history of fully researching the medicines and advancements used BEFORE they start using them.  If you really want to see what Medicine has considered Advancements, do some research on Twilight Sleep, or on any drug that has been recalled for use in Labor and delivery.  The Business of Being Born, and Pregnant in America are two wonderful documentaries that go over all of the ways where medical advancements have NOT been as helpful as everyone seems to believe.  There are some medical advancements that are wonderful, and are a great help in pregnancy and birth, such as RH factor tests and medication, and amazing medical advances in C-sections.  Taking birth away from midwifes and away from home is not what I consider a medical advancement.  If you look at the developed countries in the world, our fatality rate for mothers and babies is second to last!  If you compare our fatality rate to the world as a whole, we rank around 50th, under some 3rd world countries!  If medical advancement has done more good than harm, then why are we ranked well below developed countries like Holland, where they have the same technology as we do (if not less advanced than ours) yet their homebirth rate is around 80%, and ours is less than 2%?  Obviously delivering at home is not a bad thing for mother and baby, if you take advantage of the medical advancements to make sure you are in the 95% of births that happen without any issues or complications.  And if you are in that 5%, well that's what hospitals and Drs are there for!

"But Midwifes can't do everything a Doctor can"
True, a midwife would not be able to do an emergency C-section.  While a CNM is unable to administer drugs such as pitocin, they are able to use herbal treatments, which often have better outcomes and have less side effects.  A midwife can also preform an episiotomy or do sutures if needed.  We chose a midwife because of the things she can do that a doctor cannot.  She will be with us every step of the way.   A doctor is obligated to be with other patients, and cannot stay with you during the entire delivery.  Additionally, a midwife is more flexible with birth positions, and will do everything possible to facilitate moving the baby into a good position, including massage, walking, and squatting.

"Your first baby you should be in a hospital because you don't know what issues could come up and you don't want to have to transport to the hospital in an emergency."
There was a recent study done on mothers with Low-Risk pregnancies who were giving birth for the first time.  They found that the mortality rate for mothers and babies in births that started out in the hospital versus those that needed to be emergently transported from home to the hospital were identical.  Statistically there is no advantage to having a low risk birth start out in the hospital or start out at home.

"My baby and/or I would have died if I had had him/her at home instead of the hospital."
I'm gonna go religious on this one.  This is the argument that concerned us the most.  No one wants to be responsible for the death of a loved one, be it wife or child.  Alan and I have both done a ton of research and then prayed about this decision, and have received the most wonderful sense of comfort and peace about it.  It was not an easy road for us to get pregnant, and we spent months in treatment and on medication to help things along.  When we did get pregnant it was when we were on a break from all of the meds.  God has definitely proven that he is in control, and will do what is best.  By allowing us to conceive, God has given us earthy stewardship over his precious son or daughter, and that means that we have the privileged to know what is best for that child.  Any mother or father has that right, and it should be something that you take advantage of.  We are constantly asking what is best, and we feel right about this decision.  I am confident that if we need to go to the hospital, we will be told that we should go to the hospital - end of story.  If there is something that we need to do to prepare, like having oxygen on hand, we will have oxygen on hand.  I am not so set on this plan that I would defy God's guidance and stay at home when I shouldn't.  Alan is just as likely to receive those prompting inspirations as I am, and we both feel very good about protecting our baby by giving birth at home.


If you want to know more about our decision, or would like some of the statistics behind our choice feel free to contact me!  We are very happy with our decision, and we welcome all comments, encouragements, and even criticism.  In my opinion, birth options should be discussed far more openly than they are now, and there is always more to learn!

Beanie is doing rather well!  We had our 8 week ultrasound Monday, and he or she is right on schedule for growth.  We got to hear the heartbeat, which has moved to 184 BPM.  It was kind of sad, because someone called in sick at work so Alan couldn't make it, but I did call him so that he was able to hear it over the phone.  We also recorded it so that he could watch it later.  The video is below.

 Here's the picture!  Beanie's grown a ton since the last ultrasound!

6 Weeks along

8 Weeks along

Superwoman!

I know a lot of people complain about the symptoms of pregnancy, but there is one in particular that I think is just fabulous;  The superhuman sense of smell.  I mean, seriously!  I can smell things that I never would have been able to 3 months ago.  It can be an issue at times, especially when you work right across the freeway from the poop plant, but how seriously cool is it!  

I know God certainly doesn’t need my approval for things like that, but I am amazed at how much foresight it took to develop it.  It’s such perfect timing!  At the point where everything around you has the potential to effect two people instead of one, God gives you a super power to help you avoid potentially dangerous substances, from rotten food to cigarette smoke.  As far as super powers go it probably doesn’t make the list of top 20 most desired (Flight, invisibility, and super strength have it beat by a mile) but how often in your life do you get a real life superpower?!  

Call me a kid at heart, but I’m totally geeking out about how cool this is!

 

Guess what?!?!

Guess what!?!?!

We're preggo!

It was actually a total surprise too!  I Haven't had a period since I miscarried back in December, so we took a little break to work on our foster care stuff and just let my body start a cycle again on its own.  About 2 months ago I went in to check and they wanted to start me on progesterone to cause a period.  I started it in February, with no success.  They then gave me a shot of Progesterone that they assured me would work in 5 days of less, and that also didn't work.  I went in on Tuesday to do an ultrasound to see why I hadn't had a period, and they told me that my uterine lining was thicker than usual, so the situation was really bizarre, because everyone starts their period on this medication.  They decided to do some some blood tests to see what my hormones were doing.  They called me back a few hours later to tell me that the reason why I wasn't having a period is because I was between 4-6 weeks pregnant according to my HCG levels!  I could not utter a coherent sentence for about 2 minutes.  I was in so much shock!  I hadn't had a full period in nearly 4 months, and low and behold we were pregnant!  I freaked out a little as I went on a rebellious stage after the miscarriage and had stopped taking my prenatal vitamins, but now we're back on track with those.

After speaking with the nurse I immediately called Alan.  I was at work when I picked up the phone, and several of my cooworkers heard me say "Oh my gosh!  Are you serious?!" and I wanted him to be the first to know.  Alan was super stunned when I called him, because he wasn't expecting it either.  He's been wonderful about it, and I think he's more excited than even I am.  I can't walk within arms reach of him without him rubbing my belly, and he hasn't called me Ani since we found out.  Instead it's "Mommy"  which is a shock whenever he says it.  We have our ultrasound to see how far along I am Monday at 1:15.  I'm hoping they'll be able to see something on there.  We're ok if we don't see a heart beat, I just want to confirm that we have something growing in there.

It's kind of hilarious, as two other girls on my team of 11 people are pregnant, and the only guy on our team's wife is also pregnant.  4 out of 11 is crazy, and most of the rest are too old to have kids now anyways!  I have girls on my fertility group asking me to send them a bottle of water from work.  It does have me a little freaked out, because one of the girls, Emeline, has a three year old daughter who told her she was having twins.  Low and behold, when they went in for the ultrasound there were two distinct fetuses in there.  This same child has also predicted that I will have twins.  I'm tempted to discount it, because we weren't on any fertility meds and twins don't run in my family, but it still freaks me out.  The thing that also worries me is that her HCG level was 3000 when they went in for the ultrasound for her twins, and mine was 5000 on Tuesday and they didn't see anything when they checked my Uterus.  They weren't really looking for a baby, and it would only be about the size of a lentil, so they could easily have missed it, but high HCG levels are one indicator of multiples.  I just hope it's not triplets!

I haven't really had any Nausea yet, which is awesome, but I have noticed other symptops.  My sense of smell has intensified, food (Particularly Chocolate) tastes differnent,  I have been a little over emotional, and I have had some weird cravings.  My dinner last night consisted of a pound of broiled asparagus (Yummy!) a boiled egg, and sausage with cheese.  Alan has just been laughing at all the crazy things I've been eating.  I still hate dill pickels though, so at least that hasn't changed.  A week ago Alan and I had an hour long argument about something he said that really just set me off, when normally I wouldn't have thought twice about it.  Poor guy.

We are planning right now to go with a Midwife for our birth.  I've felt really REALLY good about not going to a hospital, and I would plan on a midwife assisted home birth even if we find out we're having twins.  Our preferred midwife has had experience with twins, so if everything looks good I would love to stay out of the hospital.  I've had too many bad experiences with hospitals not respecting the wishes of their patients, particularly when it comes to medical intervention.   I also have a feeling that if we have twins we would be really pressured into a scheduled c-section if we went to a hospital.  I do not want to do a c-section until after a trial of labor, even if it's a breach birth.  I know that God will direct us in which way is the best way, and that if a hospital is needed we will be know that.  I'm feeling really calm about this pregnancy, and I know it will all work out for the best whatever happens.  I plan on keeping a regular journal on here of everything, so updates and pictures will happen as we go along.  See you Monday with more news!

Life as we know it

I have no plan for this post. That doesn't seem so unusual to most, but all of my blogs are planned out and this one isn't. I haven't even decided if I am going to actually post it or just keep it safe in a draft. I miss livejournal's ability to make some posts private, some for only friends, and some for public. Blogger should really REALLY get on the ball with that, especially since livejournal was doing it when I was in Jr. High.

This is my life right now. I have been married for over two years now, and I am further away from getting pregnant than I was when we got married. And I really want children. I have ALWAYS known that would be my highest calling in life, from when my playing pretend as a little girl was always playing house. My parents were very against forcing children to gender identify, so they bought me dolls and trucks and tools and pretend makeup kits. I chose the dolls, and I used the Tonka trucks as strollers.

*note, this is not actually me in this picture, but you get my drift.

When we considered breeding our dog Cleo I asked my mom if she would be a good mom and her question to me was "Does she 'Mother' her toys?" I'm not saying by any means that if you played with cars as a small child that you will be a bad parent - far from it. Dogs are not people, and have nowhere near the resources and intelligence and common sense that we do. But the point remains that I have been in the practice of 'Mothering' for a very long time. I have invested so much in that goal. And you know what? I WILL be a mother some day. I will hear little children scream "Mommy!" and that will be my name. It hasn't happened yet.

This "not happening" is not without trying. I have never been on the pill, and we still have the full box of condoms we got when we were married. I have spend about 8 months on fertility meds, and we know I am broken. "Perfectly healthy people, as a general rule, have no problem getting pregnant" Right? So I am in need of fixing. I can accept that this body in it's current state has almost no chance of conceiving, and even if I could it would probably be a hard pregnancy. So now I have a choice of what to do moving forward, and there MUST be a choice. I will not accept this without a plan, and no one around me would either.

1. Do nothing. Convince myself that there are other things that I should be focusing on. Throw my efforts into loving my wonderful husband, school, loosing weight, and getting a better job. If I am patient I will have less stress, my relationships will improve, and I will not be the crazy wannabe mom, who cannot exist without relating everything in her life to children and infertility and birth and pregnancy.

2. Throw myself further into fertility treatments. Spend thousands of dollars on forcing myself to get pregnant, only to be a basket-case when I see time after time that negative test. This one has the highest possibility of conceiving. There are methods I have not tried and tests I have not done and one of those could do it. It is my highest chance of getting pregnant.

3. Start the process of adoption. Get a lawyer, save up for court fees, get registered with an adoption agency, create a bubbly profile for LDS family services that justifies ourselves as the perfect place for someone's baby, because no one is going to give a baby to someone that they have any doubt will be able to take care of them. And we could wait. Wait for potentially years, being turned down because our jobs aren't stable, we don't have college degrees, we've only been married for a short time, we don't have any other children, we're too fat, our eyes aren't the right color- the list goes on. And what if there is someone who likes us enough to consider us, and we go to pickup the baby and they say "No, I'm sorry, but we've changed our minds" even though we have been supporting them through the whole pregnancy and we were so sure that it would work out. And what if that happens one, two, three times and we never ever get to bring that sweet child home?

None of those three sound anywhere close to perfect. We have decided on a mix of one and three. We will focus on other things besides getting pregnat. We will work on improving our life and our jobs. While we do that Alan and I are working on our certification to be Foster Parents. There is no need for fancy adoption blogs, and the children are so much more needful of loving people with open arms. We realize that 90% of children that we may get will be unadoptable as their birth parents work with the court to get their children back, and the ideal is for a child to be raised by loving birth parents. The whole 100% are in need of a loving home, and that is what we can give.

If you want to be a parent you have to be where there is the possibility of children, and foster care is the perfect place for us. I know that God will know if we are supposed to adopt a child. I know that we have a lot more to offer than a fancy blog will ever show. I know that we will be blessed because of the role that we play in their lives, be it for a day or a lifetime. With Alan and I both working, many people would consider us crazy for even trying, even going forward with it with no plan as to how we are going to provide for them, but we know this is what we need to do. We are going to go through the classes and become licensed. We can't be powerless to give a child safety anymore.

It's a start. It is progression. I am moving toward 'Mommy'.

Babehs!

Hello, I'm Ani, and I'm baby hungry.

Scoff if you wish, but I think it qualifies as an addiction. Poor Alan has to hear about it all the time, especially when I tear up at little things like Playskool commercials or clips of babies on AFV.

I was watching a documentary the other day called The Business of being Born, and I can honestly say it's one of the best "alternative birth" (watch the documentary and you'll see how ironic that term is) documentaries I have ever seen. Sadly, that's probably because it's the ONLY one that is publicly available.

As a warning, this is a documentary about birth, so there are naked women giving birth everywhere, and you should not watch it if you have objections to boobs, bellies, butts, and baby heads. Netflix totally has it in their instant queue, so if anyone doesn't want to spend the $8 for the DVD from amazon.com you can totally come over to my house and watch it with me for the 5th time (seriously, it never gets old, and I learn so much every time I watch it).

I really really wish that I could find a doctor and a midwife as good as the ones Abby Epstein had in the documentary. I have NEVER seen a doctor that is that enlightened about birth. He admits that most births have no need for a doctor's intervention, and that outcomes for the vast majority of women (above 90%) who do not have serious complications, are BETTER outside of a hospital. Doctors are wonderful and necessary for those that need the medical intervention, and I wouldn't give them up for the world, but I do agree that medical intervention has gone too far.

I am so grateful for the wonderful advancements that medicine has made over the past few years. Lets face it, C-sections have saved a bunch of women and babies that would have not survived without that medical intervention, but they are actually part of the cause of our high infant and mother mortality rate. In the developed world (England, Germany, New Zealand, ect.) the US has the second to worst infant and mother mortality rate. In Europe and Japan, midwives deliver 70 percent of all births; in the U.S. midwives deliver a mere 8 percent of births. Coincidence? I think not!

Some may ridicule me for speaking out about this, having never had a baby myself, and yet, I have more experience than most first year medical students. I have been in attendance at 1 hospital birth and 3 home births, and I can honestly say that the atmosphere was so incredibly different. In one, there was screaming, yelling, medical malpractice, major bleeding, anxiety, exhaustion, and panic. In the other, calmness, peace, comfort, and better care for the infant and mother. Can you guess which one was which? In my experience, the home births were by far a better environment to bring a baby into the world.

Kind of a roundabout way of getting to it, but I am looking for a midwife. Because of the lack of demand for them, there are relatively few of them that can remain in practice for long enough to gain much experience, and the ones that do usually have mega long waiting lists, hence the looking before I'm pregnant. I'm also looking for a doctor who would be ok being my backup if something does happen to go wrong, so if you know one I would be happy to hear about them as well!