Hippie Mom in a Preppy World

Posts Tagged ‘pregnancy’

The major development of this week is the fact that I have officially started my maternity leave and ahead of schedule.  The original plan was to work until I went into labor and it could have been done but not without a great health cost, specially to my emotional and mental health.

My work performance was being affected and I was having a very hard time completing my shifts.  On Tuesday I found myself feeling both physically and mentally unwell and the pressures at work were making things worse.  Thanks to my experience with social anxiety disorder I could tell that I was exhibiting all of the physical warning signs of an anxiety attack and that it was only a matter of time before I snapped.

It would have been easier to stay if it wasn’t for the people.   These are nice, well meaning people that just happen to be highly irritating by being nice.  When it’s not even 9am and I have over 10 people saying “how are you feeling?”, “you look ready to pop!”, “any day now” and “you must be exhausted!”, I had to run to the bathroom and have a mini breakdown to release the tension and avoid letting hormonal bitch respond to them.

I was so on edge all day that it was hard to keep it together and I knew that I couldn’t hide my general discomfort and that would just trigger more “how are you feeling?” questions that were now coming from more and more different people, including men who had never cared before and employees from the other side of the building that had never ever talked to me.

That’s when I decided that it’s best to start my leave early even if it means a potentially larger financial impact than risk getting fired for workplace violence for biting some innocent soul’s head off for trying to be nice.  I am glad to have my husband’s support in that decision as I felt very conflicted about it at first.

Communication channels were not on my side to have a smooth transition though, the head of HR was not available to see me, my direct supervisor had the day off and the program manager was too busy to talk.  After sticking it out for over 3 1/2 hours just waiting to do the right thing and talk to someone I ended up just giving up and sending an e-mail to the HR manager, dropping my leave paperwork in her inbox and sending an e-mail to the program manager after I got home.  I didn’t even say goodbye to my agents as I couldn’t handle more of the same that made me want to run for the hills, as far as they were concerned I went on break and didn’t return.

After all that communication still sucked and I end up getting a text message from my boss the next morning asking if I was coming to work today because apparently nobody got the memo or if they did they didn’t bother to tell her.  Geesh!

Within hours of leaving I felt validated in having made the right choice, after taking some time at home to clear and relax all traces of anxiety and fears of looming panic attacks dissipated and I feel so much better on all levels, physically, mentally and emotionally.  I don’t care about the cankles anymore, I feel better and even people now comment about how good I look.  I feel happy, relaxed and I am even able to sleep better.

Speaking of sleep, I mistakenly thought that I would have more energy now that I’m not working full time but it’s been the opposite!  Despite sleeping more hours at night I’m also becoming short of narcoleptic during the day being hit by sleepy spells that naps don’t fix.  It’s a miracle that I haven’t napped yet today but it certainly isn’t for lack of sleepiness!

It almost feels like baby is readjusting my sleep patterns to train me for what’s to come as I now wake up once or twice a night and have insomnia for 30 mins to 1 hour before going back to sleep and have become more reliant on daytime naps as well.

So apparently I’m next in line as being due for the midwife so she waits for my call in between our weekly appointments,  the birth tub is set up so it’s only a matter of filling it up once I go into labor… whenever that is.  My due date is 1 week from today but I could go over 2 weeks past that and only Baby Fox knows his/her birthdate.

But if the departure of National Geographic nipples and the gradual return of the normal ones I remember in addition to suddenly having a teenager’s skin complexion are any signs of impending labor then I must be getting close!

And yes, there will probably be an update on Facebook once labor starts but it won’t be until things are well underway, I don’t plan to be posting things like “could this be it?”, that way anybody that cares can be informed when it’s showtime and we don’t have to activate a phone tree as that is so 1990.

Another recent physical change has been on my belly.  After 9 months of smooth skin I have now started to get stretch marks.  Everything was fine as long as my belly was stretching outwards but when the dropping started that’s when they showed up.  So it sucks that I ended up getting some marks after all but I’m not heartbroken, as far as I am concerned these are similar to battle scars and I’ll wear them with pride as badges of motherhood.

It’s kinda funny how people that don’t know me comment on how high I carry as I still looks that way but I have indeed dropped quite a bit in recent weeks, I just have a tall belly (midwife thinks that I’ll be pushing a decent sized baby).

In addition to the stretchmarks this is evidenced in the fact that my belly button now tries to look down instead of straight ahead and the fact that any elastics roll off my belly until they come to rest on my pubic bone, lol.  This means that I either have to wear maternity clothes with a full belly band or make sure that my shirt is long enough to avoid a case of peek-a-boo bump.

I do regret not getting more maternity clothes earlier in the game, it’s now too late  to do anything about it short of wasting money but I wasn’t warned about maternity clothes being irremovable stain magnets and didn’t plan on so many dresses and tops being unwearable as a result of the fact that pregnancy clumsiness results in the belly catching food drips because it gets in the way of the napkin placed on my lap for that purpose.  I even tried to put the napkin on the bump itself but it would just fall off.

I tried to do the oxy spot cleaning but either those stains are permanent or I just don’t have the interest of putting enough elbow grease in the process.  It’s ok though, I don’t have that much left and I no longer  have to worry about work dress codes so I don’t have to worry about wardrobe crisis when we get close to laundry day.

I thought that being at home would allow me to nest but I guess that I still have a backlog of exhaustion to recover from as I haven’t been able to be anywhere near as productive as I’d like, my body just wants to sleep and eat but I don’t want to spend all day in bed either.  Striving to find balance…

On the activism front, I’m finding that I can’t stand women that are not honest with themselves and others.  When a woman is unwilling to breastfeed, but tells people she was unable, it inflates statistics and seeds fear in other women that breastfeeding is an unreachable ideal for most women.

Bottom line, if you choose not to breastfeed, be proud and own up to your decision, don’t be making lame excuses to get others off your case or try to get sympathy from them by lying.

A recent incident has reawakened the activist letter writer in me as according to Lisa from the “Russ and Lisa Radio Show”, breastfeeding mothers need to take their hippie granola nonsense to the bathroom.

Maybe you’ve heard about this piece of work online already, but for those who haven’t, here is a transcript thanks to “Code Name: Mama” from the broadcast about seeing a mother discreetly nursing in a Chick-Fil-A, and how Lisa felt about it. And here are a few excerpts if you’re not up for reading the whole thing.  Try not to have a stroke, it sure was a conscious effort for me.

“It’s just bad manners as far as I’m concerned to hike your blouse up and have a baby’s head underneath, even if you’re not exposing yourself.” (I think it’s bad manners to nosh on some fast food but expect an infant to be denied HEALTHY food)

“I hate it. I just don’t understand why in a public place you want to – and she was covered by the baby’s head, you know her shirt was partially – I just, to me it was sorta just in such bad taste”

Why is this not indecent exposure? And I don’t mean that she had her breast out and that you could really see it”

(Even nursing covered isn’t enough for Lisa.  I guess we should all just hole up in our homes until our children are off the boob.)

There was more, including Lisa’s opinion that even covering up the baby with a blanket it not “discreet” enough – she wants it to be completely out of her sight. She went on and on, but I’m sure you get the idea

The actual broadcasts of this show used to be online, but the station has taken them down. I heard much of it myself, and she truly is as awful as the quotes make her sound, and then some. I am all in favor of freedom of expression but still find it incredibly saddening that people like her have the public’s ear.

I sincerely hope that no women were listening to her and were impacted in a way that would harm their current or future breastfeeding. Imagine a new mom staying shut in her home for fear of bitches like Lisa, or maybe even never nursing at all!

What disappoints me most is that these comments come from a woman, I guess I’m used to men being insensitive and ignorant pigs when it comes to this and to them I can just say “I grow people and food, what’s YOUR superpower?!”

I think that’s why I enjoy going to La Leche League meetings so much, it is the only place that I can go to and not have to be on the defensive about subjects that I am passionate about and instead get to meet and share with mothers that have similar parenting styles to mine.

I feel that just like any parent considering circumsicion should watch from beginning to end at least 1 video of the procedure being done without looking away, closing eyes or throwing up.  I feel that any woman considering feeding her baby formula should attend at least 1 La Leche League meeting.   Radical? yes, doable? unlikely but since people are so lazy that they don’t bother to make informed decisions  I would like to find a way in which they can put just as much effort being informed about things that impact their current AND future health as they do in researching what hotel to stay at at their next vacation.

Time to roll up the ranting carpet, at this rate this is going to turn into a book!

Sorry there is no new belly picture, we should fix that soon while there’s still a belly to photograph!

“no baby yet?” that seems to be the question du jour, usually coming from the masters of observation mentioned previously, if I’m still walking around with a basketball under my shirt the answer to that question should be pretty obvious.  It makes me wish that I had ordered a t-shirt that says: “No I haven’t had the baby and I’m not in labor.” or even better, one that says “it isn’t over until the fat lady isn’t fat anymore”

I made the mistake of sharing a link that I found interesting/amusing on Facebook about how people swear that a dish at a certain restaurant is guaranteed to induce labor within 48 hours.  Several different people took it to mean that I wanted to eat the dish to induce myself, quite a jump in logic!  Specially when I’m the one regularly ranting about how one shouldn’t induce labor unless medically necessary.

And since everything is healthy, the only time I would consider induction is if I’m overdue which I am not (yet).  Yes people, please remember that I still have almost 2 weeks to my official “due” date or as I like to call “guess date”.    And if it comes to that, then I’d rather try the natural tricks before I check myself into the hospital for a pitocin drip at 42 weeks.

As much as we’re excited to meet baby Fox, I am not trying to dictate when he/she should make his/her appearance.  In a sense I would probably miss being pregnant as I’m still enjoying it all when I don’t count the cankles.  I do hope that this isn’t one of those “cool babies” that insists on being fashionably late for it’s debut but baby will get to pick the time it considers best and we’ll adapt to that.

I guess this is another aspect of being a granola mom in a fruit loop world.

Thinking about fruit loops, it saddens me to see so many other new parents putting so much focus on the theme and color scheme of their nursery and not on other more important (in my opinion) decisions.  But I notice that this is because there is hardly any mention of the important  decisions to be made since most people think they have no choice and go with the “standard” procedures.

I am referring to things such as where to give birth, how to give birth, who to give birth with, which classes to take, whether to have a doula, which prenatal tests to take, to eye goop or not,  whether to vitamin K shot or not, whether to delay vaccines or skip them, whether to circumcise and most of this is just the “medical” side of it.  There’s still the decisions on parenting style and everything that comes with actually bringing the baby home.

It shocks me how often I hear somebody saying that they just did things that way because “that’s how everybody does it”, “that’s what my doctor told me to do” or “I didn’t know there was an alternative”, has anybody ever heard of the concept of INFORMED decisions?

In non ranting news, this week we had a belly cast made of the bump, it didn’t come out perfect but being Daddy Fox’s first job as sculptor it’s pretty good, it wasn’t hard to do and aside from having a waterproof belly and boobs from the vaseline lubricant it wasn’t as messy as we feared.

Now it’s a matter of me getting the chance to try to sand it a little and figure out how to decorate it after a trip to the craft store for ideas and supplies.

I had been having trouble sleeping for a very long time and something as simple as flipping sides was being torture, this was in part because we have a tiny bed and Daddy Fox is a giant and I’m not so pixie sized with the bump so there isn’t much room for movement and positioning.  Apparently Daddy Fox got tired of my whimpering and swearing throughout the night and he started to sleep on the futon in the bedroom and suddenly the room to spread and move in bed has allowed me to get the best sleep in months.

It sucks that it’s harder to fall asleep without him as close and  I can no longer sneak in middle of the night cuddles without getting up but at least I’m starting to get some decent rest again.  I appreciate his sacrifice and it’s cool that our room is big enough to fit 2 beds so that he doesn’t have to be all the way out in the couch.

An unexpected side effect to this pregnancy is that I’ve developed a sensitivity to certain food ingredients.  In the past all I had to do was avoid seafood and I could eat anything else without remorse but in recent months I find myself having reactions to MSG and other food additives used in many popular restaurants.  Now I get sick after every time I eat at Golden Corral and the other night I had an allergic reaction to food from Chipotle that was bad enough that required me breaking out the benadryl to avoid skinning myself alive.

Back to ranting… This hasn’t yet made a big stir in the news but it may, there is a peaceful “nurse in” being staged tomorrow at a park in Orlando to protest the discrimination by a lifeguard against several breastfeeding mothers and I’m cheering for them from afar.

A lot of people seem to be getting their panties in a twist over this ranging from “breastfeeding is gross” to “I don’t care what you do but I don’t want to see you do it”.  A lot of this stems from the taboo over breastfeeding and the over- sexualization of breasts.  I roll my eyes at the prudes that don’t want children to see a woman nursing a baby, they will never grow up to learn what breasts are truly for otherwise since media and society emphasizes a completely different purpose for them.

Normalizing breastfeeding means more people, adults and children, must be exposed to it on a regular basis in the course of their everyday lives.  Breastfeeding is not something to be embarrassed about. In cultures where breastfeeding is the norm, children simply don’t ask what mothers are doing with their babies, because they already know what breasts are for. And parents understand the dual purpose they can serve without embarrassment.

I’ve got nursing covers and if I use them it will be for my benefit and not anybody else’s and if baby doesn’t like them or it’s too freaking hot or inconvenient to cover up while nursing people can choose not to look or put the cover on THEIR head.

I believe in people’s right to be offended but that doesn’t entitle them to interfere.  There are many legal activities I witness in public that personally offend me and when I don’t like it, I stop looking and continue about my day.

Regardless of the many benefits of breastfeeding and its promotion by medical and governmental organizations, Florida law protects a child’s right to nurse but most people don’t know about this. Florida enacted Fla. Stat. § 383.015(1) (1993), which reads:

“A mother may breastfeed her baby in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be, irrespective of whether the nipple of the mother’s breast is uncovered during or incidental to the breastfeeding.”

Why should we stand up for our breastfeeding rights?  Because the next breastfeeding mother might not know her rights, she might not be confident enough to stand up for herself, she might even be discouraged enough that she stops breastfeeding.

On the getting ready for baby front, the stereotypical nesting instinct of wanting to clean and disinfect everything including the screws in the cabinet hinges has been non existent for me.  The house needs a good spring (or in this case summer) cleaning but the best that I can do is try to keep it from getting worse, oh well…

I have been doing some last minute shopping for miscellaneous items that we still don’t have, most of it would be extras (more towels and washcloths) or luxuries (fox crib mobile and wall decals) but it brings me joy, still dreaming over that fox themed bedding set that is out of my current financial reach….

I have printed a sign to be posted in our front door in case I get loud at odd hours while in labor and somebody calls the cops.

Think it gets the point across?

This has been an interesting week, Daddy Fox behaved and waited until I reached the official 37 week mark to start with the “is it time yet?” jokes, if I go overdue I’ll be VERY sick of those jokes…

The pregnancy newsletters that I subscribe to have shifted from talking about ” this week baby developed …” to ” cope with labor by…” or “things to take to the hospital”.

At least my body has been showing signs that it is getting ready for labor but nothing definite, it could still be weeks.

At work the boss looks at me like I’m a ticking time bomb, at least they finally started to plan for my leave.  Work has been particularly hard this week due to fatigue, swollen feet and sporadic contractions.  But despite all that I found myself nesting at work, since those are the hours in which I have energy and I’m stuck in there I end up cleaning my desk and reorganizing my filing cabinet.  It sucks that I don’t have the same energy by the time I get home, or if I do, by then my feet are so huge that I have no choice but to get off them.

Yes, I have elephant feet now, they are HUGE!  And the swelling doesn’t go down after a good night’s sleep either, they may shrink a little but it’s still super inflated.  But my blood pressure is good and it’s only my feet so I don’t have to worry about pre-eclampsia.

I am hard pressed to put my feet up often due to work and lifestyle but yesterday when I finally did get the chance to put my feet up for most of the workday I found that it didn’t help one bit, my feet kept swelling at the same pace as if I had been walking all day.

I’m drinking the water, moderating salt, trying to rest, trying to do some light walking (or in my case waddling) all to no avail.  I freak out every time I look at my feet.

I just hope that I don’t end up like my mother, her pregnancy edema is still with her 29 years later.

I admit that swelling is the only symptom that is making my life miserable.  Heavy belly, minuscule bladder capacity, low heat tolerance, pelvic pain, contractions, cramps… and anything else that I forget at the moment, they’re all manageable, constantly swollen feet that don’t fit into anything but flip flops = grrr.

We are in the final readying stages as we enter “safe dates”.  We have the birth tub at the house, the labor day supplies are all ready in a box and I struggle to keep the house clean or at least semi decent.

Daddy Fox finished assembling the nursery furniture and I love it.  Cherry is my favorite wood color so I’m glad that we got this set. It was super cute to have Daddy Fox channeling Martha Stewart last night as he applied the decorative decals to the walls.

Aside from some clutter reduction and floor cleaning the nursery is almost done!

My placenta brain doesn’t let me remember that I still need to get the empty gel caps to encapsulate my placenta, agh! I’m pretty sure that I am forgetting other things as well but my placenta hasn’t allowed me to remember what those are.

I have already acquired the belly casting kit as it was on sale at a decent discount, now I’m trying to figure out when to do it.  I would like to wait until close to 40 weeks but with the whole “it can happen at any time” I don’t want to risk going into labor and missing out on the opportunity so I may end up doing it sooner rather than later.  It’s up to Daddy Fox now as he will be playing the role of “sculptor”.

Hubby finds it amusing that I seem to have developed what he calls a “reckless” attitude, I call it “who the hell cares”, this is seen in me being too tired to try hard at anything anymore, lol.  Didn’t park exactly parallel to the lines? don’t care, didn’t meet my quota for quality evaluations at work?… don’t care, used the wrong word?… don’t care.  I dropped something on the floor?… don’t care.  I have stopped being an overachiever at work until I return from maternity leave.

One thing that I’ve been ranting quite a bit elsewhere online is the fact that most people think that natural birth and vaginal birth are synonyms.  They don’t seem to realize that one can have a very medicalized vaginal birth (examples: induction, artificial membrane rupture, pitocin augmentation,  epidural… you get the point).  I don’t know about you but none of that seems natural to me.  Perhaps the new natural should be called drug free or intervention free.

Vaginal, natural…who cares? I guess I care.  I’m willing to concede that one can still have a natural birth with artificial membrane rupture provided that it’s done while labor has already been off to a good start,  there are some natural induction techniques that can be considered as well but pitocin, epidurals etc fall way out of that scope.

And  I think it matters because the pendulum about childbirth is swung so far out that, in general it has become an undefined mystery and it needs clarification, if only to let others make up their own mind of what seems normal and natural to them.

Will I get the natural birth I want?  I don’t know… I hope so but will I strive for it?  that’s what I’ve been doing for 9 months!

I leave you with the heavy bump and cankles at 37 weeks: