R’s Birth Story

40 weeks + 3 days.

I woke up about 1:45 AM feeling mild contractions. I’d had middle of the night contractions a few times in the past weeks, but this was a bit stronger. From then until 5 AM, I had contractions every 20-30 minutes, getting closer to 15 minutes apart by 5 AM.

I got out of bed, since resting between contractions wasn’t really happening anymore, because of adrenaline, not intensity. I was just restless! I ate some food and packed a few last minute things in my birth bag, only to lie back down and find out the contractions had completely stopped. Except for one random really strong one, I had no contractions until around 9.

It was Ezra’s day off, so he’d gotten the kids breakfast and we all went outside. He did some yard work while I did the first two steps of the Miles circuit (forward leaning and then side lying). He had to leave somewhere around 9:15 if I wasn’t in labor. About 8:55 I got up and started walking to the house. I was about halfway across the yard when a really strong contraction hit.

We decided Ezra should to stay home, told his mom to come, and texted the doula that she wasn’t needed yet, but that *something* was happening. I still thought maybe Ezra should do his errand, but was worried labor might start. I tried to eat some but wasn’t really hungry.

Contractions continued to be quite strong but far apart. I had to breathe through them and be on my hands and knees, but never had any idea when they’d hit. Sometimes it was 5 minutes, other times 35. Emotionally I was really not doing well and felt very confused and uncertain. I had no idea what was going on and was afraid they were going to stop altogether again, while also being afraid this the real thing. To distract myself, I was hanging out with everyone else in the living room, resting between contractions and grateful for Ezra’s help to get on my hands and knees during a contraction and also for the girls occasional back rubs or jokes.

Around 11 I got up to use the bathroom and after that stayed in our dark bedroom, which is when contractions became more regular. I started squeezing a comb to help with the pain. At 11:30, I told my doula she needed to come and she suggested a few things that helped the contractions even out a bit more (like moving to an exercise ball if I could). Our fear with all the start-stop and inconsistency was that baby was in a bad position. My mother-in-law arrived and started helping with the other kids (though S had already made them all pb&j for lunch).

The doula arrived about 12:30. She started making sure we were both hydrating, helped us do a side-lying release again, and also helped me get comfortable lying on my side. I was so weak, probably a combination of adrenaline, being on the tail end of a cold, and not having slept much for the last few nights. I was also having more crampy abdominal pain that didn’t go away between most contractions. At one point, she thought we should try a lift and tuck, essentially picking up my belly to “dump” the baby down further in the middle of a contraction, which sounded absolutely awful. But I wanted this baby to be in a good place and hoped that even if a lift and tuck hurt now, it would shorten the pushing stage. Finally, I let out a yelp, dropped my belly, and held onto the edge of the bed because baby definitely moved into a different position, though I don’t know if it was better or not.

Somewhere in there, the song In the Twinkling of an Eye by @izziethommusic came on. I wasn’t sure if it would make me feel better, meeting me in the pit, or make me feel worse because it’s a lament. But it was exactly what I needed at the time and I could feel myself relaxing and surrendering fears because of it.

Contractions were picking up and I started having a lot of self-doubt and pain avoidance. I said we needed to go, because I recognized these as transition signals, but also because an epidural sounded really good. I told Ezra that, and started planning in my mind: if I was at 5 cm or less, I’d get an epidural. 7 or less, I’d consider it or ask for IV meds. I knew that wasn’t really what I wanted, but it was a strong desire at the time, especially because I was so weak! Songs on my playlist and encouragement from my doula and Ezra helped me feel a little better, but I still didn’t feel ready at all for the end of labor. I remember crying a little bit as I sat on the edge of the bed leaning on Ezra before we left the house.

Ezra got me sunglasses for the car since it was so bright out, and we headed to the hospital, the doula in her car and us in ours. I had one or two contractions in the five minute drive over. There is no parking close to the entrance, so we walked a block or so to the entrance – which surprisingly felt really good. I was able to handle contractions holding on to Ezra, and the breeze was refreshing. This labor was first time that I could tolerate contractions not on my side or hands and knees!

Something someone said at check-in made me think they didn’t think I was very far along. “It’s her fourth,’ my doula said and they sped up. We went back to a room and started getting settled. The midwife came in and checked me. I was 8 cm, 100% effaced, 0 station. It was around 2 PM, and I calculated hopefully that we could have a baby in arms by 3 PM (bad idea; don’t do that, especially if you can see the clock afterwards!). They asked if I wanted any meds… I asked what the IV options were, but decided against it. And Ezra knew I didn’t really want an epidural so told them no about that before I could say anything (which I confess made me annoyed at the moment, but he was right, especially as he later reminded me, I hadn’t said anything about it before being in labor, so he knew not to trust me!). But I did ask about the nitrous oxide, which they brought pretty quickly.

And it was amazing. It took the edge off the pain, so that I could actually relax through contractions and not freak out or lose control. At first I thought it was because I was more focused on breathing, but then as I paid more attention to how I was acting, I realized it was really the laughing gas.

I was lying on my side with a peanut ball between my knees. Ezra was up at my head, and the doula was jiggling my glute (sounds weird, but it helped so much and apparently hijacks your brain). Through the baby’s monitor, I had a warning before every contraction, because I could hear the heart rate pick up before I felt anything, so took that as my signal to take a deep breath of nitrous oxide. The midwife was putting warm compresses on my perineum which felt really good (and was something I’d wanted but forgotten to communicate to anyone). I noticed that I would lift my chin up a bit to breathe in the nitrous oxide, but then dropped it to my chest to breathe out and that felt so good.

I was a bit discouraged. I’d known it was unlikely I’d be further along than an 8, but I’d been hoping I was (I’ve always been 8-9.5 on arrival!). And even with the nitrous I was starting to just be done.

So the midwife broke my water, taking me from a 9 to cervix “gone” and baby at +2. It was 3 PM. But my body wasn’t ready to push yet. I know it wasn’t really that long, but it felt like a long time and there was a little bit of crying in there again. It was intense and painful. The nitrous still helped, but I was losing control again. Ezra and my doula were coaching my breathing and vocalizations, to stay low. My hips were hurting, so they rolled me over to my other side, and I think that did something because I immediately started feeling more downward pressure and movement. Rolling over was also good because now I couldn’t see the clock or the growing number of people coming into the room to be ready for the birth!

This is where it gets blurry! Fetal ejection reflex totally took over (around 3:25 most likely). There were breaks, but I don’t remember distinct pushing contractions and I was definitely not actively pushing. I don’t know when I dropped the comb I’d been squeezing or the nitrous oxide mask, but I did. I was on my side, but curled a bit, and could see the midwife prepared but also very hands off. I felt pressure on my tail bone only briefly (and yelled out for counter pressure, which my doula immediately started doing), and then felt a lot of stretching and crowning. It wasn’t as sharply painful as I’d remembered but was so so so intense. As always, it was the best feeling ever as the head finally popped out, and then shoulders and body wriggled free. I reached down and picked her up and brought her to my chest. I thought the midwife was helping me, but she says she had guided out the head and shoulders and the rest was all me. It was 3:34 PM.

Baby was crying and healthy and pink. She’d had a nuchal cord but it hadn’t caused any problems. My placenta came quickly and without any issues – my doula and I had both recently read a study about eating dates and that being on par with pitocin, so I’d eaten a bunch of dates pretty much right away and they didn’t need to give me any pitocin to stop bleeding and were pretty impressed with placenta delivery and my uterus’s firmness – so I think they worked! I had a tiny tear, but the midwife was pretty confident about stopping the bleeding and it not needing any stitches, so we left it.

I’d completely forgotten about the gender, but someone asked and someone checked (I can’t seem to get my babies at the right angle to see right after they’re born!) and said it was a girl. She didn’t nurse for a while but she was with me for about two hours before they took her to weigh and measure: 7 pounds, 7 ounces; 19 3/4 inches long. This time I remembered to ask Ezra to pause my music as soon as she was born, and so we could see she was born to Sara Groves’s song “Beautiful Child,” which is pretty accurate!

“Beautiful child right from the moment you were born
You overtook my heart my world
My beautiful child

Tender and sweet both in your crying and your sleep
You radiate a sense of hope
You’re beautiful

And I have seen the most amazing sights
In my travels on the earth
Misty seas and amber harbor lights
And other things of matchless worth

But next to you all of the beauty seems so plain
You would think I’d never seen a beautiful thing.”

Free Printable: The Postpartum Planner

My postpartum planner is now available for easy download at The Sorrows of Eve!

Free Printable: Postpartum Planner

The Overstimulated Parent

I knew babies could get overstimulated. When ours weren’t sleeping well, one of the first things I did was make sure there wasn’t too much going on before their naps and that they had a dark, quiet environment for sleeping. But it took me a long time to realize that most of the times when I snapped at my husband or kids, it wasn’t because I was angry, it was because I was overstimulated. I still shouldn’t have snapped at them, but once I couldn’t address the root properly until I knew what it was. Mom gets overstimulated, too—and it can be just as detrimental as when baby is overstimulated.

Once the worst of my postpartum depression was over, I still felt like my brain was about to explode. Daily life had moved from numbness to panic-like tension. No matter what our routine was, how I reduced stress, or how much sleep I got, I constantly felt like managing simple responsibilities was like shoving a square peg into a round hole. Some of the irritability[1] and inability to focus was just a symptom of depression. But in the four years since that bout of PPD, I’ve realized that a large portion of it was also overstimulation.

I should have known sooner that I was easily overstimulated: youth group was often stressful for me, and I skipped the singing time at youth conferences because it was too loud, too crowded, too much. I pick up on details quickly, which can be nice, but also means that there’s often too much in one place for me to really process. It’s overwhelming, and my reaction is often anger or impatience because something just needs to stop.

It’s no excuse for anger, but it’s helped me know what to do instead of getting angry.

1. Remember the problem isn’t anything anyone is doing, but simply that the amount of stimulus has sent me into flight/fight mode. I’m not about to explode. The world isn’t about to end. I’m not forgetting something important. Knowing this helped me be calmer when our third was a baby, because I could tell myself I wasn’t losing my mind; there was just too much going on.
   
2. Take a deep breath: the “there’s just too much!” feeling is very similar to panic, and focusing on deep breaths helps me calm the panic and sort out the various inputs. I’m also usually praying at this point, especially praying that I won’t sin in my overstimulation. Closing your eyes if you can helps, too (or throw an apron over your head like Sarah Edwards ;)).
   
3. Turn down or off whatever stimulus you can. Ask the kids to be quiet or go outside, or leave the room if you can. (I confess that often this has looked like me shouting “STOP!” because all I can think about is there being too much going on). Sometimes I just have to choose to shut out or ignore certain stimuli, filtering out what isn’t important. A lot of people mention turning on peaceful or worship music as a way to dwell on the truth instead of sinking into depression or anxiety. I have done this at night, but if my kids are around, I cannot handle it.
   
4. Deal with what’s going on one thing at a time. Sometimes I make a list for that, other times, each kid gets a turn to say something. It’s been helpful for me to set a timer to blitz through a few things or do a brain dump while my kids watch a video or at least know that they get mommy back when the timer goes off.
   
5. Make low-stimulus time a priority. When our third was little, I extended her last nap of the day by wearing her in the carrier, in a dark bedroom, with white noise on while my husband finished up dinner with the older two. After a few nights of this, I realized that that half an hour was a great help to me. Since then, I’ve found myself taking rests or “naps” and realizing that I’m not actually fatigued, I just needed to let my brain have a break and unwind. Lowering stimuli also means that I have to be careful to not get too wrapped up in a book, podcast, blog article, etc. when the kids are awake or it’s not their rest time, so that if I am interrupted, my brain isn’t already full.

Over time, this has helped me expand my capacity for stimuli. I’m doing better with three kids than I did for a long time with only two, but it’s taken a long time. It’s also harder for me to handle excess stimuli in the Winter, when my seasonal depression is around. But with practice, I’ve learned to identify overstimulation, sort out the stimuli, and try to reduce them so that I can process everything I need to.

(This podcast has some helpful tips, and it’s pretty amazing to hear about all of the different sensory systems God designed).

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[1] Irritability = tendency to be irritated, easily irritated. This is different from the action taken in response, which could be sinful or not. We can be irritable due to sin, but other stressors can lead us that direction as well.

On Being Dependent

Originally posted in September 2019 (I’m not pregnant right now!), but I’m reposting it because I’ve been thinking about these things again recently.

None of us can do life on our own.

But when I’m rested, it’s easy to think that I can, or at least that I can as long as I have Ezra’s help with dishes and bedtime.

Pregnancy, especially the beginning and the end, make it pretty clear that I’m more dependent on God and others than I usually realize. The fatigue of pregnancy is a clear reminder that I am not God. All of the unknowns our of my control are also heavy indicators of this. And depending on the level of exhaustion, it’s easy to throw around the phrase “less human.” And when I start feeling “less human,” that becomes intertwined with not feeling like I am enough. Rather, that I am not doing enough.

Because when we can keep up with (all of, most, some, a few) of our ideals, it’s easy to think that what we do is earning love and worth. That when we can give something back is when we are lovable. Pregnancy (and even more, postpartum!) always brings me face to face with this lie, and living on a smaller budget in the basement “apartment” of Ezra’s parents’ home has also challenged this. More generally, having kids and moving frequently has done that – favors can’t always be returned, and there isn’t always time or opportunity to “earn” people’s help. But in the body of Christ, that’s all lies anyway because that’s not how God loves us. Not that we should be lazy, but that our worth and loveliness does not come from anything we do for God or others but completely by grace.

So I’ve learned to take free food or accept extra babysitting or a ride or kids’ clothes without any burden of feeling I have to do something in return. But it’s also been amazing to see places where I have been able to pour into the community – not necessarily back to the same people who have helped us, but others in the Body – in a way that points to the interdependence of God’s people. The same month we were given 13 newborn cloth diapers, we found a home to give away the booster seat that had never sold on craigslist. As believers, we should not have a log of who did what for me that I need to repay or who I’ve done things for that I can go to for help. It’s about grace and sharing freely what God has given us. Dependence.

This dependence does not make us “less human.” Having a low-functioning brain from being sleep deprived also does not make me “less human.” You are never more or less human.
Aubry Smith writes in Holy Labor (and this applies beyond pregnant women!), “Women are made strong because God has created them in his image. Women have limitations because they are human and not God (or goddesses!). Once we embrace our humanity, we are free to enjoy the strength God gives us and revel in the Sabbath rest given to us by our loving creator” (58).
So we can sleep with tasks unfinished, ask for help from people we hardly know, and receive support without shame. This is hard for all humans because of pride (we want to be gods! See “Humble Roots” by Hannah Anderson). But the popular narrative of pregnant women as “goddesses” can make this even harder for mothers.

Smith writes, “While I was physically stronger, the mother goddess narrative also loaded guilt and shame on me when I felt the limitations of my own body. Pregnant mothers do have limits, and the limitations are greater than the limitations on bodies of non-pregnant women… As I neared labor, my so-called inner goddess couldn’t be paged. I was coming to terms with my own humanity. These books left me almost unable to admit my creaturely weaknesses and limitations. And I still had postpartum ahead of me! I felt as if I lived in a paradox: a pregnant woman is strong, and a pregnant woman is weak” (45).

Like it or not, as humans we are dependent. When we are strong by God’s grace, others depend on us. And when we are weak, we by God’s grace depend on others. Either way, we are all the while recipients of His grace and hesed – a word that doesn’t fully translate into English but that Michael Card summarizes as “when the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.”

May we as members of the body of Christ, pregnant or not, weak or strong, fully receive His free grace, bestow it uncalculatingly on others, and receive it without burden.

3 Baby Sleep Stories

(follow-on from my last post, mostly to give examples of how vastly different each baby is – with all 3 we did the same thing from the start! Again, I’m not going into a lot of detail because I believe that what you do is really between you, your husband, and your doctor as you look at your baby. Everyone sleeps through the night eventually, but there comes a point where baby won’t improve unless you do something, and there are things you can do that aren’t just leaving baby to cry)

#1, S. She slept exactly as we had hoped for the first 3 weeks. Then it went downhill from there until at 7 weeks when she just. Would. Not. Nap. Until about 4 months she slept almost entirely on me (or Ezra sometimes at night). We discovered she had some reflux and was sensitive to dairy and gluten, but we had already formed habits of poor sleep. She would also get more and more hyper the more tired she got, so we had to block out everything for her with white noise and blackout curtains, and at church it took a lot of bouncing, swaying, and patting with the hood of the baby carrier AND a nursing cover to get her to sleep. I thought I was crazy until I watched the other babies at church just fall asleep in the carrier and that’s when I knew that her personality was just not going to let her do that.

At 4 months we tried the baby whisperer’s pick-up put-down sleep coaching method for nights and it worked so well for teaching her to sleep without a lot of crying. Three nights and she fell asleep on her own without a peep, and really only the first night took much work. Naps were trickier because I couldn’t figure out when she was tired (see getting hyper when she was tired), but eventually we got it and from then on usually any sleep troubles were temporary (but still rough, like dropping the swaddle) or fixed by changing how long she was awake for. Even so we had to keep the room dark, so sleeping on the go was hard. When she started rolling on her tummy and sucking her thumb we saw a huge improvement in sleep. She still liked to nurse to sleep and once she knew how to fall asleep on her own it didn’t seem to cause any trouble so we did it a lot.

#2, E. She didn’t sleep as well at the start (I nursed her almost all night long in the hospital), and we bounced back and forth between swaddling or not for a while. Before my mom left when E was a month old, I spent some time helping her fall asleep on her own (mostly with shushing and patting), as she was getting to the point of not just sleeping all the time (this has been a tricky transition point all 3 times). Even still, I did often have to work a bit to get her to sleep (the whole “sleepy but awake” thing is not as simple as it sounds, and E was really the only one of our kids who ever had that stage. She got sleepy when tired! :P). It was going pretty well! Then we moved and had a 16 hr time change and that was a really difficult time, especially because we were all in one room and she was ready for an earlier bedtime but was used to going to bed with us but because we were in one room we couldn’t really do the work to make that change. She was also not napping very well, even though she would fall asleep on her own (in retrospect I think it was a sleep regression). It only took a night or two (same pick up put down thing we did with S) once we were in our rental house and then she was going to sleep on her own for nights and eventually naps fixed themselves. She also started sleeping better when she rolled on her tummy and sucked her thumb. We occasionally nursed to sleep, mostly to avoid her getting hungry in the middle of a longer nap (something that has been an issue all 3 times).

#3, B. She was fussy and unsettled from the start, though the first two weeks were easier than later on. Sleep was rare and difficult. We hoped her tongue-tie revision would help, but it didn’t. She seemed very sensitive to any external stimulation, but there was only so much I could do about that because of S & E needing my attention. She cried hard whenever she was tired. She had frequent days where she screamed if I put her down, fussed at feeds, and only slept for 30 minutes at a time in the day no matter what I did. Her reflux diagnosis (mucousy spit ups, frequent gags/coughs, and noisy breathing) at 2 months helped me know I wasn’t crazy, but I still felt desperate.
We borrowed a swing and after a rough transition to napping there instead of in my arms, at least I could do something during her 30 minute naps. That was the hardest thing I have ever done with baby sleep, because she was so upset but we felt we had no other choice, but I also had no clue if we were even right about when she needed to nap.
At night she slept in the cosleeper at first and then my chest for a bit (which meant poor sleep for me because I was so worried about her falling off, even with blankets and pillows far away). She frequently wiggled and tooted which was amusing but irritating. Cutting dairy helped, but it wasn’t until I also cut chickpeas and corn that we really saw a difference in her digestion. Her sleep was so inconsistent that I was confused, frustrated, and felt like I was doing everything wrong because nothing ever seemed to help (she wouldn’t even nurse to sleep!).
Finally, at 3 months she started sucking her fingers and stopped nursing the whole time she was awake (so we had a rough transition to drop the swaddle). She also started taking naps that were longer than 45 minutes! At 4 months, we moved her out of the swing (as soon as she was going to sleep well in it, I started turning down the speed, so now she was sleeping in a non-moving swing), because one day she randomly fell asleep on the floor. We had a visible 4 month sleep regression – she was up every 1-4 hours all night, her naps were short, and she was even crankier again, but finally it passed. At 6 months she started taking naps that were consistently over 45 minutes and now takes 2 at almost exactly the same times every day – and fusses at me if I am late putting her down. And after all that talk about how cranky and fussy she was, she’s now playful and affectionate and we have loved her so much from the start.

Around a year with the other two we stopped nursing at night by just shortening the time they nursed for and they started sleeping through pretty quickly. I really couldn’t be bothered before then because I wanted them in our room the first year (this time I thought maybe I’d be ready sooner but I’m not ready for her to share with her sisters yet – they love sharing blankets and stuffed animals too much!), and oddly enough I actually sleep better when I’m being woken once or twice a night. I don’t have insomnia when I’m nursing at night!

 

Baby Sleep for Whole Persons

(written when B was 8 months old. Please note that this is not a post about which methods are good or bad or how much you should schedule or not or whatever. That’s between you and your husband. I share this because I know it’s an experience a lot of moms have had and it’s an area we need to be gracious with ourselves and others about while also knowing that we don’t have to be stuck doing things that aren’t right for our family)

I knew babies didn’t just naturally sleep like they should. But popular baby sleep books make it seem like if you have them sleep mostly where you want them long-term, focus on full feeds, and follow cues, they’ll just fall into some measure of predictability.

But in the last week, 8-month-old B has had nights where she woke up twice to nurse, nights where she was up from 11:30-2:30 and then was up again at 3:30, and followed by a night of record sleep.
You never know what you’re going to get when you put her to bed, and it’s been that way since birth (though since 6 months her naps are at least consistent!).

The “promise” of baby sleep books has just never worked out for us. One book at least gave some ideas for gentle sleep-coaching, but it was worded in such a way that it seemed it would only be needed if you’d started with “bad habits” from the start.

So on top of having babies that weren’t sleeping well, I felt guilty. Maybe I had done something “wrong.” I felt that way the most with B because her sleep was the worst. She was a mess from day 1, but at the same time, she confirmed for us that methods give you best-case scenarios and that’s not the reality of individual babies with their own personalities. The steps we took probably kept her from being harder than she was, but they’re not a guarantee.

Because babies are whole persons. They have their own bodies and own minds and own needs. It’s helpful to be prepared with some idea of when they may need to eat or sleep, but ultimately all a parent can do is set the stage and offer guidance towards where you want the baby to go. You can’t make a baby sleep or eat – and that does not mean you are giving up parental authority. It means that you are respecting your baby as an individual, seeking to study them and learn who they are and how you can best do your job in raising them. As they get older, there are definitely times you can tell them to stay in bed based on what you know they need from your parental knowledge of physiology and your particular child, but even then, you can’t actually make them sleep. So sometimes it just isn’t possible for your baby or toddler to fit well into what your family already has going. Sometimes your baby isn’t the one who needs to change.

Sometimes, your babies will sleep exactly how you hoped they would. Sometimes, they won’t and a little coaching will get them there (that was our E). And sometimes, you will do everything “right” and your baby will just not go along with it (that was [is?] B). (Sometimes all three factors in one baby – that was S).

Developmental phases mean you take steps back sometimes. Things that worked stop working. Personalities blossom. Sickness and teething disrupt routines.

Mamas, you are not crazy. Your babies are unique, and while there are things you can do to help them sleep better (you don’t have to be a martyr to bad baby sleep), those helps do not guarantee anything (you don’t have to feel guilty if your baby doesn’t do what she’s “supposed to”). Your baby is an individual and has her own sleep needs and sleep patterns and personality that affects the way she interacts with and interprets the world. Some baby sleep books account for this more, but it still comes across as “tweak this and that and your baby will sleep.”
And I’m not even talking about sleeping through the night here, just about baby falling asleep independently in a crib and taking a decent nap!

We’ve had 3 babies and with all 3 we have had the same sleep mindset to start with, but have had 3 totally different outcomes and have had to take 3 unique paths to get where we are all comfortable, not quite in any parenting style pigeon hole (I’ll post them in a follow-up for anyone interested).

I’m thankful I had Ezra to look at me this time around and say that I wasn’t crazy and doing things differently wouldn’t have made a difference, but it was just who B was and that that was ok. That helped me not feel guilty and stop researching what in the world I might be doing wrong (only leading to more confusion because of all of the conflicting opinions out there! Pick one thing and stick with it at least for 3 days).

Knowing about baby sleep is helpful so you can nudge baby towards your family’s baby sleep goals, but take anything you read with a grain of salt and check it against your very own real life baby.
Then don’t feel guilty if your baby doesn’t do what you think she should. She’s not broken; she’s an individual. You can do something about it, but be gentle with yourself and with your baby. She’s a whole person and so are you.

How have your babies slept and what did you find helpful or unhelpful in that process?

Recommended resource: my friend Patricia is a virtual postpartum doula and does sleep coaching! She’s so gentle and kind and knowledgeable and understands listening to your baby as well as working to get your baby sleeping how you want them to.

2019-2020

I don’t have big thoughts at the close of 2019. It was a fairly quiet year: we did a lot at home, took a few short trips, and welcomed B (not a quiet thing but compared to years with moves and big trips and babies all rolled into twelve months it was!).

Ezra and I went to the coast for a few days to chaperone a youth retreat, we went to Eastern Washington for my brother’s college graduation, and went camping.
Ezra studied a lot and worked part-time, which sometimes led to him traveling, and planted and tended a productive garden.
The girls and I read a lot of books, helped with a storytime at a community center, and had lots of playdates with friends. We started a bit of kindergarten but will see what that really ends up being as S’s birthday is later in the year so I’m not sure if we’ll start school this fall or not.
I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, had the opportunity to play oboe at church a number of times, and grew and fed a baby.

Our pastor asked a question along the lines of “what from this year will have long-term impact?”
Nothing jumped out at me at first (other than adding B to our family!), but as I thought about it more two small things and one big thing came to mind.

1. Learning to see the good days as gifts, not expectations. B has been a very unpredictable baby and that was key for helping my mood in the fourth trimester, and I think it will be helpful this coming year and beyond. I don’t deserve good days, nor can every day be a “good” day in the sense of ease and peace. I shouldn’t be surprised and wonder what’s going on on the bad days, especially with three little people in my care. So there has been lots of “Thank you, Jesus” when B takes a good nap, the older girls are calm, and I’m not overwhelmed by overstimulation.

2. Likewise, seeing peace as coming from trust in God not from tuning out the scary or hard. In the fourth trimester, I rarely read the news and cut out most social media. That was necessary then. I don’t want to live so detached from the world around me long-term, though, so while I have cut some things out for good and am more careful in my social media use to not overwhelm myself, I can’t hide from scary things or run from hard things all the time, but am often called to face them with trust in God.

3. Framing these two smaller things is the concept of God’s hesed, or lovingkindness. I am diving into this more this year with a book by Michael Card I asked for and received for Christmas. But in 2019, that meant knowing that His actions towards me are rooted in a love that never fails, whatever lies in my path. This was key in moments of both anxiety and depression, knowing the love and kindness of a Father and a God “from whom I should expect nothing” but who “gives me everything” (a working definition of hesed Card has used before), and that that everything is not my “best life now,” but Him working to bring me back to Him. This podcast was pivotal for me.

What was your 2019 like? What does your 2020 look like on this side of the year?

Round 3: 3rd and 4th Trimesters

The third trimester of B’s pregnancy went the fastest, which I was thankful for. I love being pregnant, but was ready to be done waiting for birth and postpartum, which I just wanted to be over. Not knowing the gender helped with that, though, because it gave me something to look forward to about the birth and postpartum.
And as I got closer to my due date I was tired of driving half an hour for midwife appointments and was looking forward to the “break” of not cooking and cleaning.
Once again I had bad round ligament pain (though less frequently than with E), and my gag reflex was over the top.
It was also hard to make plans with the girls – I didn’t want to tell them we could do something and then it not happen. So a few times when they asked to do something or have pancakes for breakfast, etc. I told them they could have pancakes, or something better, the baby, if she was born.

38 weeks, at rehearsal for Ezra’s brother’s wedding.
The two weeks after the wedding were peaceful and relaxing, and were a good time to continue to work through fears and find hope and refuge in God not things like a needle-free birth.

4th Trimester
I think with the first two kids I would have benefited from treating the whole first three months as recovery, but this time I am extra thankful I had that mindset. B came out crying and crying and doctor’s visits (just about daily – high bilirubin requiring monitoring, tongue tie, my infection) characterized our first few weeks with her. This was my most physically uncomfortable postpartum, thanks to B’s tongue tie and an infection I got. But we were so supported by biological and church family through out all of that, and it has made such a difference that Ezra works/studies from home most days so he gets the big girls up in the morning, makes/dishes up breakfast, and then his lunch break is at home and he doesn’t have a commute so is off right at 5. That plus in-laws living upstairs makes me wonder how we would survive if we ever had another in a different living situation!
Also, home visit lactation consultants are worth the money!

Compassion was a word that came to mind our first night in the hospital. I’m thankful it did because it helped me have that as a goal and the forefront of my mind as we navigate this transition. Toddler tears and kindergartner meltdowns, newborn fussiness and my own mental fog. Yes, I have yelled here and there and been impatient a lot. But I have Supernaturally also been more understanding of the older girls’ moods and more patient with the newborn stage than I expected to be (though I still find months 1-4 to be the hardest for me).

PPD: by God’s grace, it has not been a big issue. Guarding my mind has been a daily, sometimes hourly, fight. Anxiety was a bigger issue than depression, but that too settled by the end of the fourth trimester. I may write another post on why I think PPD didn’t come this time, as I think that there are some key areas of personal growth and understanding that helped that – though the biggest reason is Supernatural, especially considering how difficult of a baby B has been.

I mentioned she cried a lot the first few weeks. That may have been purple crying, but from the start she seemed uncomfortable and would not sleep anywhere but our arms most of the time, from day one. Her digestion seemed to bother her, like she needed to fill her diaper a while before she could. I knew some of this and her gassiness were due to her tongue tie, but unfortunately that didn’t solve the problem (but at least I wasn’t crying every feed anymore!). I once again have had too much milk (that is not as good as it seems!), and by six weeks we could tell she also had reflux I say also because S had it too and E had a touch of it). I felt like I really didn’t understand her and as her sleepiness wore off it got even worse because I could not figure out when she was tired and she fought sleep very badly (which may have in part been due to overstimulation, especially since she would mostly sleep being held which meant she was sleeping with sisters around her!).
The basic reflux management strategies didn’t work with her (they had with E, but not with S), so I cut dairy. It took a few weeks to really see a difference, but her fussiness slowed down, she was a better nurser, and her other reflux symptoms settled too. We got her sleeping in a borrowed swing (since if she was going to have a sleep crutch we figured it should be out of my arms so I could take care of the big girls), but it wasn’t a seamless transition and her naps were usually still 30 minutes no matter what (that’s improving as I write this at three months, but is still unpredictable). Her nights got more predictable without dairy but right now we are still recovering from the effects of me challenging the dairy sensitivity! Still, it was good to challenge it to know that that’s what made the difference and also to know that all the layers of soothing we had had to do were not just us overdoing it or creating dependencies accidentally but something she actually NEEDED to settle her because of her discomfort.

That all makes her sound like a terrible baby, which is not true! Our most difficult, definitely – but she smiled at four weeks and once dairy got out of my system she has been a very happy baby and I can’t wait to see her personality develop more. One thing that has gotten me through the hard moments is knowing that she will grow out of them and will be six months soon enough and after that my enjoyment of her will increase exponentially.

The fourth trimester is a really real thing, and all three of our kids have definitely settled down at around three months and become more predictable, easier to nurse, and have better sleeping habits (though it’s usually closer to four months before they are going to sleep on their own in their own space).

B’s Birth Story, 2

I got on the bed, the nurse got my vitals and checked me – 8-9 cm. My cervix felt super high, though, every time someone checked me. After this time and details blur more, but I wanted a cool washcloth on my forehead and the nurse mentioned hot packs on my ligaments – after that I was super demanding until they got all that for me. It made a huge difference. The midwife and a student midwife came in. The midwife suggested different positions, and surprisingly I was willing to try them, but usually ended up back on my hands and knees or later side.

As the pain got worse, I HAD to hold Ezra’s hand and have him right there. I started feeling the urge to push; the midwife checked me again and said I was close with a bulging bag and if she broke it I could start pushing… but I wasn’t ready yet. Finally at 9:10 PM I let her, hoping that it would then be like E’s labor – 3 pushes and done. But nope. She must have been up pretty high because it was a while until I felt the part of pushing I really disliked – but all the while I kept saying things like “make it stop!” I was also so excited to meet the baby and would also say “we get to meet the baby soon!”

A doula came in and was doing acupressure which felt amazing. Later she looped a sheet around the top of the bed for me to pull on during contractions, which I was afraid would be counterproductive but I couldn’t NOT. I tried pushing on hands and knees for a bit to try to get her to move down but the pressure on my tailbone was unbearable so I was back on my side. Ezra moved and started counterpressure on my tailbone which was a huge relief – my least favorite part of labor is pushing. I felt less in control than I had with E because of that, especially when she was finally crowning, and it felt like she crowned FOREVER – a couple of times I thought “surely this is it,” but nope, and I thought for sure I had probably torn badly. Her body slipped out easily, though, and she started crying right away (9:49 PM). They handed her to me (Ezra had caught her; I had wanted to but wasn’t on top of the pain enough this time), and after a few moments asked boy or girl. I was just so relieved it was over I had totally forgotten we didn’t know. I couldn’t see well because it was dark and she was slippery and wiggly, but someone checked and said girl… and then Ezra confessed to peeking during the ultrasound.

The placenta took a while to come which was not fun and they were impatient, but finally it was out. I had a small tear and they left it up to me as to whether or not to stitch it, but I didn’t want to be in later with complications and no hormones to help with needles so I told them to do it. B didn’t want to nurse and was pretty cranky (a sign of what was to come), but mama held her for a bit when I needed to focus more on relaxing for stitches.

They weighed her shortly before we left the delivery room; she was 7 lbs 9 oz and 20” long – almost a whole pound bigger than S was and 12 oz bigger than E. No wonder pushing was worse!

It was by far my hardest labor, but I also felt the most supported and helped throughout. It was also different from the others – I had early labor, didn’t care about timing contractions, didn’t puke (heaved a few times and it hurt the ligaments so badly so I guessed my body stopped trying), and really relied on my birth team (something I had been thinking about ever since my midwife said “come in when you need the support,” and I realized in other births I had never felt the need for support other than  Ezra and Hannah, but started thinking about the help and relief they would be able to offer).

B’s Birth Story, 1

Due date, 2:30 am. I was having contractions about 10 minutes apart, not painful or strong, but feelable. I got up at 3:30 to eat something and drink some strong red raspberry leaf tea, but by 4:15 they had stopped. I wasn’t too surprised as a few nights previously I had felt something similar (which we think turned out to be gas, because S was up with stomach cramps too). I did some positioning exercises since baby had been flipping back and forth and I didn’t want her posterior (but it was really hard to tell her position throughout because I had an anterior placenta). I went back to bed.
The next morning at church I was still having some feelable contractions, but they weren’t timeable. When we got home, I started having some bloody show. I napped during the girls’ rest time, trying to recoup sleep from the night before, but it was also an opportunity to work through fears, mostly by reviewing “How Firm a Foundation.”

Sporadic, weak contractions continued through the afternoon, and while I paid attention to timing I didn’t think too much of them – but I was glad to have more warning and early labor since I never has before. We also took the girls’ car seats out so that I wouldn’t have to sit in the front seat or a tiny space.

At 5 I started cooking dinner, and that’s when they started getting stronger and more regular, but half of them seemed like round ligament pain without my uterus tightening, so I wasn’t sure how to time them – but I did need to be on hands and knees for them by 5:45.

6:15 pm – Ezra and I started making a plan. Because of the contractions I’d had in the middle of the night, we thought his mom should ride with us in case of car birth. I showered, and his sister came down to feed the girls dinner. We started gathering last minute items, still not sure when to leave because contractions weren’t all that bad yet – but we wanted to leave sooner than I had with S or E, so we called the midwife. She didn’t sound too sure, but then I had a contraction that was a turning point in labor and she said I sounded far enough along that they wouldn’t send me home (I don’t know what hospital policy was, but I loved that they monitored me by emotional signposts more than anything else throughout).

I said I would go to the bathroom first, and then I knew without a doubt it was time to go as contractions got much more intense afterwards. As I got into the car I said “I really don’t want to do this,” which was in many ways my attitude throughout which probably negatively impacted labor, but may just have been how I went through transition this time. I tried riding buckled on my hands and knees but it didn’t work so I moved to kneeling on the floor, resting my arms against the seat, thankful it was dark and low enough that no one could see me breaking the law (but was I really anyway?). Partway through I turned music on and that really helped as it was getting more intense. Ezra’s mom would sometimes put her hand on mine during a contraction, which was comforting. I started having adrenaline shakes, which was awful, especially in the car when I could feel my muscles having to work to keep me from sliding around. These lasted until a few hours after she was born – but they actually helped offset pain once we were out of the car.

The Getty’s “Behold the Lamb” came on, which was super cool and encouraging because ever since Christmas I had connected birth with communion, and during communion at church that morning had found a lot of strength in that. I only had 5 contractions in the car, which meant they were still about 6 minutes apart.

We arrived; mama and I got out and went in the ER entrance because it was night. I had a contraction while they were checking me in, so dropped to my hands and knees – they were really concerned but mama reassured them that’s just how I had to be. They came up with a wheelchair, which I did NOT want to get in, but it was a long way to the maternity ward, so they rushed me very quickly. The air on my face felt so good but they went so fast I was afraid I would tip over! I had a contraction checking in to L&D, and then they wheeled me into a room (I wanted to crawl and had started doing so, but it was too far to crawl the whole way).

To be continued…