So far, so good

My physical recovery from childbirth has been much easier the second time around.  Both Mariah and Kassiah were born with one hand on their head, which resulted in a small 1^st degree tear.  Both times I was offered stitches and turned that unappealing idea down very quickly.  But since Kassiah was born in water with just a couple minutes of pushing, my body thanked me afterward.  When Mariah was born, I remember feeling swollen and a bit sore ‘down there’ for about a week.  It hurt to laugh and let’s not even talk about post-partum hemorrhoids (you’re welcome).  But this time, I’ve felt none of that.  The only pain I experienced afterward was back and tummy cramps from my uterus contracting back into it’s normal size during the first two days…and of course sore ta-ta’s from re-learning how to breastfeed.  (One very hot day I tried the natural remedy of putting frozen cabbage leaves in my bra and then spent the rest of the day wondering what smelled like farts!)

I had been holding my breath during pregnancy, bracing for the raging hormones that I experienced post-partum with Mariah.  Knock on wood, but so far I’ve had pretty minimal baby blues and have mostly felt like myself.  Just a couple of crying episodes for no valid reason other than sleep deprivation, but nothing like the extreme ups and downs I had after my first delivery.  I’m sure there will still be some low moods to come in the next few months though, so I’m trying to stay mentally prepared for tough days ahead.  I think it’s a combination of factors that’s helped buffer the emotional impact.  Even though my mood had eventually improved after having Mariah, I decided to stay on a low dosage of anti-depressants during pregnancy to help prepare for post-partum.  I also had my placenta encapsulated again and have been taking those regularly to restore the iron and nutrients my body lost.  And overall, I think that just having been through the process before has helped.  Whereas with Mariah I was adjusting to the huge life change of becoming a mother, this time I only have to re-adjust into being a mother of two. 

As for Mariah’s adjustment to becoming a sister – she is doing as well as can be expected for an 18 month-old baby herself.  The morning after Kassiah was born, Mariah arrived home from her sleepover and Ivan and I watched her reaction to discovering her new baby sister.  At first she looked a bit shocked but that quickly transformed into sheer excitement, which really hasn’t tapered off.  Everyday, she gives Kassiah kisses (which sometimes turn into bites) and hugs (that sometimes squeeze a bit too tight) – all because she loves her to bits.  There’s definitely some jealousy there, but more than anything, Mariah has a strong interest in Kassiah and just wants to be involved.  She’s tried to feed her popcorn and bananas, offered to share her milk bottle, and even takes her beloved pacifier out of her own mouth to try and settle her sister.  She’s a bit rough around the edges right now, but Mariah seems to be slowly transitioning into the best big sister anyone could ask for.  

Kassiah's birth story

Just when I was starting to think that Kassiah would never arrive and I was permanently pregnant…contractions finally started.  It was late Thursday night and I was just about to go to sleep when I began to get a mild crampy feeling every 20 minutes or so.  I remembered my prenatal training from Mariah’s time and went straight to bed to ensure I’d be rested for labour.  By about 5am, the contractions were noticeable enough to wake me up, but still mild enough to know that I was in the early stage.  Ivan and I spent Friday juggling rest periods with strategies to progress the labour.  I knew I needed to walk, so we went on a family trip to the grocery store where I took occasional discrete pauses to breathe through contractions.  I tried to stay pretty active the rest of the day, but still squeezed in an afternoon nap with Mariah.  By Friday evening, the contractions were finally getting a bit closer together – like every 5-10 minutes, and a bit more painful.  Around 8pm, we packed Mariah a sleepover bag and shipped her off to a friend’s place, since we figured she’s a bit too young to understand what was about to happen.  Then we paged our midwives around 10 pm to give them a heads up that labour had started and that they would likely get another call in the middle of the night. 

I took a hot bath, since this usually slows down contractions if they’re just part of pre-labour, or speeds them up if your body is ready.  I was starting to get disappointed since the contractions began to slow down for a little while.  But sure enough, when I tried to go to bed, they again intensified.  Ivan quickly bounced back into the role of labour coach and applied ‘counterpressure’ to my hips with each contraction to help with the pain.  I was so anxious to get labour moving that I was torn between sleeping and staying awake.  I was getting stuck in my head – busy with thoughts trying to analyze how far along into labour I was and how to hurry up the process, rather than trusting my body and just letting the process happen.  I had been timing the contractions all day and was so focused on trying to get them closer together, that my anxiety level had the opposite effect and I was getting frustrated that my body wasn’t listening to my orders. 

I tried hard to convince myself that things were moving forward.  Once contractions got down to about 5 minutes apart I paged my midwife, Debbie, again to check-in.  She offered to come and assess me, but also reminded me that I sounded a bit too chipper to be in the active phase of labour.  I agreed that I didn’t quite feel ‘there yet’ and decided to try and sleep one more time.  Ivan suggested we stop timing the contractions and just focus on relaxing – and as soon as I managed to turn my brain off and my body on, things finally started changing.  My response to the contractions progressively transitioned from breathing through them to moaning while squeezing Ivan.  By 3am, they had become intense enough that I was pretty sure I was in ‘active labour’.  I paged Debbie and said “I’m not chipper anymore” to which she laughed and assured me she and Theresa would be on their way.  They arrived just 15 minutes later when I had returned to the bathtub to help soothe the pain.  Each one brought me comfort and support, helping me feel safe in good hands.  When Debbie checked me, I probably should have been happy to already be 7cm dilated, but I joked that I wished I were 10cm already since I was fully dilated when the midwives arrived for Mariah’s delivery.  I realized that the whole time, I had been comparing this labour to my first experience, and hurrying it along to try and fit the same schedule.  But little did I know that despite my early labour being twice as long as the first time (about 30 hours), the active labour and pushing would turn out to be twice as fast the second time. 

As contractions continued to get more intense and closer together, I tried my best to cope with them.  I went back and forth from squatting under my rain shower to hanging over my bathtub, with Ivan pressing on my lower back.  I used a towel as a pillow and kept burying my face in it and grabbing onto it, like it could help me escape the pain.  The last few contractions were so strong that I was whimpering and thinking to myself I would never do this again.  Theresa leaned over and gently reminded me that even though it was hard to do, I needed to try and relax during contractions to allow my body to open up, so I tried my best to turn my clenched face into a calm one.  After just an hour and a half of active labour, I suddenly felt Kassiah’s head pressing down and I told the midwives I needed to push.  The first push didn’t do anything productive aside from making Theresa reach for the fish net (i.e. I may or may not have pooped a bit – don’t laugh, it’s very common during childbirth...nothing to be ashamed of, ladies!).  But on the next contraction, I sat up in the bathtub and before Theresa could even get her gloves on, Kassiah’s head was making her way through.  I could hear Ivan and the midwives encouraging me to slow down to minimize tearing, and I tried my best for a few seconds but then quickly gave another couple of pushes and Kassiah emerged into the water.  Theresa immediately handed her to me, and I was overwhelmed with relief that I had reached the finish line and that my baby was finally here.  She looked so much like Mariah did at birth that it was a bit unreal.  Ivan and I gushed in amazement as Debbie cozied Kassiah in warm towels on my chest and Theresa made sure she had a bit of a cry.  Kassiah officially arrived at 4:31 am Saturday July 7^th in the incredible waterbirth experience I had always wanted.  After the umbilical cord had finished pulsing, Ivan got to do the honours and Theresa told him that if we had a third, he could even be the ‘catcher’ (which I’ll have to thank her for later since I had only recently convinced Ivan and myself that two is enough : ) 

Soon after, the midwives helped me back to my bed where I was joined by Ivan and Kassiah for some snuggle time.  She weighed in at 6 lbs 7 oz – just an ounce smaller than Mariah was, even after Kassiah was 5 days overdue.  She was quiet and content upon her arrival into the world, and even latched on for a feed without any difficulty.  Ivan and I feel so lucky to have such a positive pregnancy and birth experience, yet again, that we gave Kassiah the middle name ‘Sage’ after the Sage Passages team with our Birth Partnership midwives. 

Me and my amazing midwives

The good old 'weigh' : )

The Overdue Time Warp

As I watched my July 2^nd due date come and go this week, I’m finally experiencing the time warp of being overdue, first hand.  I’ve never fully understood what it felt like before, since Mariah was one of the 3% who showed up right on time.  So far, I think I’m handling it pretty well since Ivan is now off on summer holidays, and we’ve been enjoying our last few days as a family of three.  We’ve tried to balance keeping active with walks and outings along with lots of rest including 2-hour afternoon naps with Mariah.  Staying distracted definitely helps since I think I would be going a bit insane if I were home alone staring at the clock. 

I’ve been optimistically thinking that this baby will arrive ‘tomorrow’ for the last two weeks or so…but each tomorrow has turned into a yesterday pretty quickly.  Part of what’s helped me stay calm is that the midwifery approach to a due date tends to be more liberal than the medical model.  Many women at my stage would already have a medical induction scheduled, which I think can add a bit too much pressure to an already stressful situation.  Midwives offer induction options as well, but these are usually less invasive and less time constrained.  I was offered a ‘stretch and sweep’ of my cervix starting at 38 weeks and although I’ve been anxious to meet my new baby, I decided to hold off.  I finally had the procedure done today (which turned out to be pretty quick with minimal discomfort) and I’m curious to see if it ‘works’ since it’s said to kickstart labour within 48 hours for about 25% of women.  I’ve been using natural inducers; like pregnancy tea, homeopathic medicine, and evening primrose oil; for the last month…so hopefully the combination will help get baby moving soon.  Although I’ve carried her quite high throughout my pregnancy, she finally ‘dropped’ a few days ago – which I can tell with some new pelvic pressure and a relief from heartburn.  So as far as I can tell, all signs point to ‘tomorrow’ – right?!?

The unpredictability factor seems to be even harder on Ivan than it is on me.  He continues to pendulum swing between nesting (like cooking & cleaning in preparation for baby) and then getting frustrated when life goes on and we need to do all of those things again.  Today he talked me into a Costco trip for enough snacks to survive the apocalypse – so hopefully that doesn’t jinx anything!  And Mariah…she continues to be as oblivious as possible to my belly, but more and more obsessed with the concept of ‘babies’.  She now stops in her tracks each time she sees a ‘baby’ in public and screams the word in delight, even if the ‘baby’ happens to be twice her age.  She drags her own little baby everywhere with her so I’m sure she and her sister will be inseparable…once Mariah gets over some intense jealousy and identity issues, that is. 

So if all goes well, I will be busy with baby #2 ‘tomorrow’ and won’t have time to blog for a while.  Fingers crossed that the delivery and post-partum mood roller coaster are a little gentler than the first time.  I will share an update on both as soon as chaos subsides a bit.  Until then – wish me luck, and look out for the new arrival e-mail (which I took the liberty of pre-drafting several weeks ago with blanks for the details in true Holly style!).

18 months

Mariah turned a year and a half last week, which means 18-months will essentially be the small age gap between she and her sister who could show up ‘any day now’.  Mariah continues to fine tune her big sister skills with her ‘baby’ (who a friend mistakenly referred to as a bear the other day and I quickly corrected her, since Mariah hasn’t yet realized that her baby is not the same species as her : )  Mariah sometimes talks in private with this baby and seems to include long frustrated pauses in which she thinks maybe, just maybe, her baby will respond.  Perhaps she’s smarter than that – knowing that the baby is just pretend…or perhaps smarter still – the pauses are timed for her to imagine the dialogue they would have if this bear—I mean baby, could talk. 

Mariah certainly proves her intelligence and maturity in other ways, like helping to keep the house tidy.  Each morning when I make her instant oatmeal, she gestures for the packet and then walks it over to the garbage to throw it out.  Yesterday the house was cold so she stopped along the way to point to the tiles and hug her arms together to report these observations to me.  She refuses to wear a bib, yet doesn’t like dropping food, so she insists that I help her clean off any food drips from her clothes before taking the next bite.  When Mariah finishes her meals, she points at any crumbs she left on the floor to remind Ivan and I to clean them.  And if we don’t get to it fast enough for her liking, little Miss waddles over to get the 5 foot broom and dustpan herself!  (No joke, I didn’t even realize she knew where it was until she started sweeping on her own).  If it’s a liquid mess, like a milk splatter from her sippy cup, Mariah independently finds a dishrag or a facecloth to wipe it up.  And her latest tidy quirk is that the moment I take her shoes off when she returns from her daily trip to the backyard, she immediately runs to the mud room to put her shoes away in a cubby that she knows is hers.  Just when we thought her body language couldn’t get cuter – she’s started tugging at our hearts when she gets ‘in trouble’.  The other day her pen marks managed to get from the paper to the couch and when we gently but firmly reminded her to be more careful, she took two steps in front of us with her back turned toward us, hung her head down in despair, shrugged her shoulders up and down with sad sighs, and made some noticeable sniffles before we realized her eyes were welling up with tears.  She doesn’t cry or say anything when she’s upset like this, but just makes it clear to us that she’s a sad little combination of remorseful and embarrassed, enough for us to feel guilty for scolding her.  Mariah is definitely a brave little girl though too.  When she falls or hurts herself, we’ve taught her to ‘wipe it off’ so she quickly stands up and proudly wipes her hands before running to her next task. 

And incase anyone wanted my usual dose of pregnancy complaints – I’ve got a new one.  My latest symptom is apparently called Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD), which is caused by stretching of the pelvic joint.  The best way I can describe this pain to you is the way a friend captured it recently “like someone winds up and kicks you in the groin, without warning”!  Seriously – just imagine what that would feel like…and then what you would look like suddenly grabbing your crotch and keeling over – this is the latest joy I’ve had in the last week.  I looked up triggers, which include stretching movements such as swimming (which was a big relief to me since I’ve spent several weeks feeling guilty for not swimming and now have an excuse not to).  My chiropractor suggested a natural remedy of taking ‘Lecithin’ supplements, which can apparently help control the pain as quickly as Tylenol.  Interestingly, when I looked up food sources of lecithin, the major one was eggs – which I have been craving and eating daily during this pregnancy.  And when I backtracked in my head to the days I had gotten these pains – they were actually the worst on the days I skipped my morning dose of eggs!  So here’s to following your instincts during pregnancy, and otherwise – our bodies really do know what’s best for us.

The End is Near

At nearly 38 weeks, I’m thankful to have officially reached a healthy ‘full-term’ pregnancy.  But since that ranges from 37-42 weeks and due dates are pretty arbitrary, it narrows down my expectations for baby to arrive somewhere between ‘any day now’ up to a month away!  That broad a timeline poses a challenge for control-freaks like myself, but in a way the element of surprise just adds more excitement to the whole experience.  Ivan & I have nested enough to feel generally prepared for a potential early arrival.  The bassinet is assembled, the homebirth supplies are organized, baby’s drawers are filled with plenty of hand-me-downs.  But if she decides to show up fashionably late, that’s okay with me too.  I’m just a few days away from mat leave and am working on the oh-so difficult goal of prioritizing rest and relaxation.  I had initially planned to keep Mariah home with me during my days before the next one arrives.  But then I remembered how extra tiring parenting can be when you’re pregnant.  Luckily Ivan has encouraged me to make the wise decision of continuing to drop Mariah to daycare on my days off so that they can be filled with pre-natal massages, reading, sleeping, or whatever it is I feel like doing.  Obviously, it didn’t take him long to convince me of that plan – but he did rid me of any guilt about losing final one-on-one moments with Mariah by assuring me that he would do the same thing if he were in my shoes.

The last few weeks of pregnancy have become a bit more achy and a bit less blissful.  As with my first pregnancy, my hip joints have gone a bit out of whack so I’ve been getting regular chiropractic adjustments, which really helps.  Although some kind-hearted women assure me that I still look great (while avoiding too much eye-contact), others who find it harder to lie remind me that I’m ‘huge’ or even ask the ever-hilarious joke of whether I’m having twins (yes mother, I’m publicly shaming you!).  I really can’t complain because I find it equally as hard to cover my double chin while I accept the compliments as I do with controlling my eye-rolling and sarcasm when anyone points out the obvious - that I’m as big as a house.  I swear I’m not a body-image victim who thinks I’m fat.  I do realize that gaining weight is normal and healthy during pregnancy.  But, it’s much easier to be comfortable with extra weight when it’s a cute round bump in the second trimester, than when it leaves you waddling and panting during the day and wishing you had a crane to help you roll at night in the third trimester!  Despite this vanity, or maybe because of it…I chose to do a pregnancy photo shoot recently and am actually pretty happy with the results – thanks to the almighty airbrush.  Since this might be my last pregnancy experience, and since motherhood has become such a big part of my identity, I thought it would be neat to capture the physical process with some proof.

 

As the time draws nearer, Mariah is helping to boost my faith in her as a capable big sister.  She’s become very interested in her ‘baby’ (a pink stuffed bear Ivan & I bought when we were dating and I was determined to have my first-born attach to!).  Mariah has started to say this word often and independently includes ‘baby’ in her play.  She sits it up carefully in her tiny chair and pushes it around the house, she brings it to her toys and tries to teach it to play, and yesterday when I jokingly stuffed baby’s feet into shoes, Mariah took it seriously and started walking her baby around.  I have a feeling Mariah will be greatly disappointed when she realizes her little sister will be almost as boring and passive as this bear for the first few months – but nonetheless, I’m sure Mariah will fall in love with her too.