Babies and 'Broidery

I love my job! I love it when I hear about my clients having their babies and I love it each time an anxious mum rings me up and says - "I think my water just broke!" I feel so excited for them and so honoured to be called and asked for advice or help, or even to come along and attend the birth.

I think I have now clocked over 25 births since I first came to the US back in 2005 and have taught over 50 couples! That's around 75 babies - er...no make that 76 as there was one set of twins. I am now beginning to get repeat clients which is also fantastic, seeing them evolve from their first birthing experience to their second.

I am currently on call for a second time mama who had a four hour birth last time around! I hope I make it!!


Christmas Challenge!

Okay, so this is it. My Christmas challenge to myself is to use as much as my fabric stash as possible without buying further AND to make at least one gift for each family member this Christmas. I had hoped to do this last year, on my green and frugal campaign, however, this year we have more pressing need to be frugal, partly due to our potential return to Blighty next summer and having to cart all this stuff back and partly due to a housing situation that we are working through. So, I am trying to cut back on my fetish of fabric and yarn and finally pull out my finger and make those projects I planned on last year! So here are today and yesterday's efforts.

This is a cute barrett holder that I made this afternoon, it has wading and card inner to ensure it is firm and then the trimming is fixed at points. The barrettes then just slide and clip on. I popped over to a friend's house this morning for coffee, she has an embroidery machine! Eager to show me how it worked, we ran up some embroidered names!! I intend to make this gift up again for my god daughter.

This is a little lavender and millet filled beanie doll. Mr Beehive has a god daughter who will like this I think. I think I might actually make a little tooth bag for her and she can then be a tooth dolly.

Mr Beehive laughed at this one! Don't blame him really, but what do you buy for the couple that really have everything. I know they'll enjoy this over their Scottish Sunday Post and warm barm cakes!

Oh and this is a stealthy brag here! See the blue ribbon! This skirt won first prize yesterday in the local Agricultural fayre!! Watch out Hugh Fearnly Knittingstools - I'll be up there with my crotcheted onions one day giving you a run for your money!

The Beehive menagerie

Yesterday was somewhat surreal.


About noon I was rung by someone who was looking for a Childbirth Educator. Not unusual for someone who IS a childbirth instructor, but rather than looking for classes they were looking for one and their studio for an upcoming movie!!!
They came over to assess my teaching space, asked if I would be happy being filmed (tis apparently a love story - I think my role may take place AFTER the lovin' bit n'est pas!!??) and could I provide three pregnant couples to sit in on "the class"!! Well, always eager to please and cutting a long story short, three hours later I may have signed myself up to my debut movie performance, I do hope I have place for my golden globe on my mantel!!!

The original hive diva though, Little Miss Beehive, would like to inform you that we are currently driving a "Sheep" whilst her painting is drying on the "Weasel"!!


Funny, I had sure feelings that the car we HAD been driving was actually a lemon!!
As if I don't have enough going on in my life lol!!!!

The Business of being Born

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgLf8hHMgo

Finally!

Look at the faces of the docs when asked how often they get to see a natural birth - they look like they don't even understand the question for a second!!!

Surprises!

The world is a strange and unsuspecting place!

Yesterday I was called by an enquirer who, by short, must be deaf, have a weird fantasy about being yelled at in labor or is utterly utterly understanding and forgiving. I am going to opt for the latter right now, it eases my concience somewhat! After trying for the fourth time that day to return her call from two days prior and only succeeding in getting as far as the darned "bleep" before being hunted down and smoked out by "les", I had finally found a quiet space, daddy was home, so there would be no chance of any interuptions........WHO AM I KIDDING!??? I was hiding in the loo and was leaving a message when all of a sudden all hell breaks loose between I and W. They managed to get past daddy, who by all accounts is not remotely connected to the world and get into my haven screaming like banshees about who was doing what, how, when etc etc.

I am mid message, so press the "end" button, deciding it would be easier to sort this out, then call her back. I have had them all week while himself has been overseas on business, I finally think I have a moment where he can watch them and answer these problems while I call back this enquirer.........so i snap! I yell! There is fire, spit, eternal damnation and screeching about how they are going to lose me a client, how I can never find any space to take calls, how my job is never seen as important and my office always seems to become the playroom (or the blinkin' lav!..........I breathe, MrBeehive finally intervenes, calm is somewhat restored........until I look down at the phone which is happily sitting there clocking up the minutes still connected!!

I think the next few hours are beyond scripting. I rang back with a brief apology for goodness knows what she heard of that.....

However.........(see the above!) maybe someone felt sorry finally that I don't have an office any better equipped than the John, in fact that IS it's focal point.

So I spent an agonising weekend, envisaging her knowing multitudes of others, telling them of my incredible outburst, horrendous parenting skills and god knows what else.......after this, I thought nothing else would match......until the outlaws decided to start raking up the leaves as well.

They say that once you get older, you stop trying to please people as much, you say it like it is, you wear purple (actually, I wear it now, so my outlook is probably lower than average!), watching and hearing my neighbour lighting fires in the middle of her lawn on a daily basis, screaming in German at 5am in the morning in the middle of the drive, mowing the lawn at 9pm at night when it is pitch black continually reassures me of this assumption. My FIL managed to surpass all possible understanding of human geneality on Sunday. I am not going to enter into it, suffice to say that his assumptions and lack of tact were outstanding. I am still awaiting an apology before he enters my home in two weeks time......perhaps I will have the telephone demon on standby!!!!

Right, now I need to go back to my previous two posts to start undoing the damage created by this weekend!

Or maybe just a strong Hazelnut mocha will work this morning!

Damn, damn and damn!

Instinct is an amazing thing. One should trust it and stick with it!

I am sitting here today feeling really annoyed at myself for not trusting my intuition. Yesterday i was at the birth of my clients, she had admitted herself at around 11 with some light bleeding, which could have been bloody show. I joined her at 11am and she was 3cm but not really feeling many contractions. To cut a v. long story short, she agreed sometime in the afternoon to her water being broken and then her contractions over the next couple of hours really started to kick in. She was coping pretty well, but kept withdrawing and fighting the contractions and I had a hard time keeping her with me and helping her work with them. Eventually she decided she wanted an epidural so they checked her dilation, which was then at 5cm, and she waited for the anaethetist. He took another half hour, during which time she was getting really intense contractions, which seemed to have a plateau to them ie: lasted a while and then subsided to only give her around a minutes grace before the next one. She seemed to me to be really progressing and then even going through transition where she got panicky that the anaethetist wasn't coming, however, it had only been half an hour. It crossed my mind to remind her that she was doing so well and I was really confused how hard these contractions had suddenly become that I even wondered if she couldn't get through without the epidural, so all I said - kick myself now- is "are you sure you want this". I should have maybe been more audible and suggested a re-examination!!!grrr - mad at myself!
He went ahead and put in the epidural and within 10 minutes the baby's heart rate dropped. It did recover, but they decided to then check her again.....guess what!! 10 !

So this went on for a while with her pushing, actually really effectively considering she had had an epdiural, until she had been pushing for 2 hours. She did have a tetanic contraction at one point so they had to give her a shot of terbutaline to relax her uterus. Gradually over this time the baby's heart wasn't recovering as quickly, he had passed meconium and the doc couldn't feel the cord around the neck, so my thoughts were that he was reacting to the epidural, it was a real coincedence! She and her husband were left to discuss c-section eventually as the doc couldn't get the vacuum as the baby was still too high. He was posterior which I had told her he was when she arrived with back ache so we had been working to try to turn him, but obviously it hadn't worked. So with that, the culmination that the ultrasound had said the baby was at least 8lb6 (since when do ultrasounds talk anyway!?) and the dropping FHT, she was prepped for surgery and her hubby and I doned scrubs. Within 10 mins of waiting, the nurse was back to say that she had had the baby, crash c-section! Apparently when the anaethetist put more epidural into her catheter, the baby's heart had dropped again and not recovered.......not jumping to conclusions here, but......coincedence I don't think so! So now I am mad at myself for what might have been, I keep thinking if only I had told her that I felt her dilation might have changed, we could have gotten her checked and she probably would have had the baby (with some vacuum help maybe) vaginally! Oh, and the baby was only 7lb 13, so trusting the "voice" of technology all the while is not always the best way to go.
She and the baby are fine however so the end result was great. Next time, I will trust my thoughts as it would not have hurt to have voiced them a little louder.

Bloodroot

This is a fabulous restaurant in Bridgeport! I went there last night with M. She is an amazing woman. She teaches at the school and has been doing so since it first began some 18 years ago. She is also a birth activist and along with her work, tries to encourage attachment and child led development through her work at the school as well as the promotion of natural birth. She is one of these women who knows everyone, has read so much literature and yet is not forward or loud. She invited a midwife friend of hers whom she had wanted to hook me up with for sometime. This lady......as I much expected, being a friend of M's, was so interesting to listen to. She has left practice now after many many years and now lectures at one of the great universities in the area. It was interesting to hear her perspectives having been a homebirth midwife, now to be on the other side of the field and actually having some (perhaps?) influence on the birthing community by teaching the next generation of CNM's. The thing is, I think, with birth in the US and anywhere where it is OB led, people are frightenend. OB's are frightenend of not being in control of something that is uncontrollable and shouldn't BE controlled! It is like trying to control a fire or water....it will take the path it wants to take. I also think - you can kick my arse for saying this, but, here, particularly, there is still a huge male influence within medical text books and curriculums within the birthing world even if OB's are female, they have read and learned from the same school of thought and men are far more technocratic than most women, it is a fact, they like instructions!!! In summary, birth has been housed in the wrong category, along with illness, in hospitals where most people are saved or cured, what is there to save or cure about a low risk birth? But technology, even a monitor, is there to let you know when things are wrong and thus sending out the wrong message! There is a need for a judicious use of technology during birth of course, babies are saved and so are mothers, but equally there are many more births that are intervened in or c'sections performed that are unecessary..........Okay, you can wake up now, rant over!

Anyway, back to this restaurant - It is an old boat house overlooking the harbour and was run by more M's (if you know what I mean - wise women!). There is no waiter service and it is totally veggie and organic. The food was amazing and the ambiance - well, I am surprised people ever leave!
M, being M, never actually got directly to the point as to why she wanted to talk to me - she sent a cryptic message earlier in the week, so I was guessing she had some plans up her sleeve! but then that is what I like about M so much! There doesn't need to be an agenda - life goes on, another pal calls, so hell, let's invite her too and see what comes out of the evening! So I am non the wiser for M's plans as yet, but am better off for a new location for an evening out and have two new cookbooks to boot!!

Today the boys did their plays for the parents at the drama group. They have had so much fun. W. has actually asked to go regularly, so I may have to see whether it would fit around the hectic after school schedules! I am contemplating getting a regular babysitter who might help for a couple of hours after school two nights a week and then be a regular sitter for Friday or Saturdays too. That way, I can be a taxi without having to take all the kids, both boys can do stuff AND T can do his homework under supervision if I have to take W somewhere else. Think this might be a plan!

Funny how things crop up in a day though. I have been asked the same question twice today, by two different people. T. asked this morning what I missed from the UK. His list consisted of Legoland, Fruit shoots and his friend D. Which, I guess for a 6 year old is a pretty predictable list. W. apparently missed his grandma (hear that mum!!) and that was it - oh, and the swimming pool she took them to. But then, thinking about it, what exactly is he going to remember about the UK, he was only 20 months when we left. As for me, I think, apart from family and friends, I miss familiarity. I was trying to explain this to Aimee later in the day when she asked too: I see it as this; familiarity is the not having to explain what you meant, the knowing without asking how a system works, the understanding of certain words. I think in summary it is what comes with being brought up in a country and culture that you can never get (well, that might be argueable after many years) in another country.

Okay, I really need to get on, I have to make sure we have the car loaded, download today's pics. and then probably cook some dinner for the kids. I wonder what they will make of marinated tofu and chinese cabbage - I can see that will fit in the category of "uuurrrgh and Yuk"!!! Ah well, I try..........*sigh*

Go Baby, go baby!!!!

She did it!!!!!!!!!!!
She finally had her baby. My mum rang on Wednesday morning at about 6am having been up for 5 hours with broken waters (and being too excited to sleep I think!). I got my childcare action plan in operation and then headed over after breakfast to see if we could get some contractions going as things had been quiet so far. She had already rung the hospital at 1am to inform them (dang!) and so they had then agreed to her staying put for 12 hours - they had wanted her in immediately! However, after 5 hours of walking, using the Robozo and making soup to sneak into the hospital and eating crackers and juice, there was still not a lot happening. We also tried a few herbal tinctures to help her uterus.
At the hospital they didn't seem in a hurry with the Pitocin, so we could have stayed at home and she could have slept, they gave her until 1am to walk and try to increase her slight cramping. It was actually okay we were left alone, able to move about and .....get this one .......encouraged to EAT!!!!!!! Yay - I was at the same hospital 6 months ago and my client was not allowed to eat! I was so happy to see this change. We did a lot of walking, talking and eventually some dancing, throwing up (her, not me!) and eventually she found her rhythm and settled into her contractions either leaning back into me as we swayed or forward onto me as I supported her.

Anyway, to cut a very long (36 hour) story short. My client ended up having pitocin but still managed (at 4'11) to push out her 8lb3oz OP daughter who also was caught under the pubic bone (shoulder dystocia) with NO epidural or other meds. Incidently the baby was not OP earlier in the day as my client had an ultrasound to check her position because of the reluctance to do internals due to the rupture, so we spent a lot of the labour on all fours, or leaning forward and upright. I have to say I wasn't convinced the baby was OP at all, I am just repeating what the OB said. She had to have a little assistance with the vacuum cup and the haematoma was on the BACK of her head and I could have sworn she (the OB) twisted her as the head came out, possibly to help with the SD? but was THEN face up??!! - hmm I imagine I was so tired I was hallucinating. Anyway, my client was absolutely exhausted, but the sheer determination was humbling. I have never witnessed so much strength, composure and inner power from someone.
Interestingly enough, as I was talking with the nurses afterwards, who were also very impressed with her, they mentioned that they have only ever witnessed a "few natural births" - wow!

Back home and they all coped impressively without me again......T wanted the low down on the baby and the mom - I think the message is getting in having witnessed him at his grandmother's in the holidays playing "mummies" with his little cousin and telling her that "you don't lie down to have babies" !! What a star ! I am now working on "babies don't have to be born in hospital", hopefully by the time he has children, he will have the complete picture!!

The boys have finished in camp today, we are having a playdate with some pals this afternoon, they are coming over for pizza and "movie night" - the boys are so excited that they will be watching a movie after tea and getting to stay up later than they normally do! Life is so simple :-))