I am now 39 weeks pregnant and am waiting not so patiently for my baby boy to make his arrival. This pregnancy has been much different from my other two pregnancies in the fact that I was sick almost the entire time. The first three months I had terrible morning sickness, and since Keiffer was deployed, it was very challenging for me to cope. I rarely got out of the house and turned to the dreaded television as a babysitter while I lay in misery. Fortunately I had many friends help me by bringing me food and babysitting the girls.
My second trimester was plagued with winter illnesses like the flu, ear infections and a never ending cough. All three of us girls were sick for three months straight. I thought it would never end, and it didn't help that my belly was expanding and it was getting more and more difficult to do simple parenting tasks like give my girls baths.
Fortunately for my third trimester there was light at the end of the tunnel. My friend introduced me to the wonderful world of essential oils to improve my health and that of my entire family, and they started working immediately. I never realized that essential oils were healers and that they could be used as a replacement to traditional medicine and drugs. I went into it full steam ahead, and it paid off. All three of us girls recovered from our streak of illness, and started feeling much better. Keiffer came home from deployment which was the greatest relief ever for me. He immediately dove in helping me out and taking care of the things that were really challenging for me to do on my own. My load was lifted, but his increased. I guess that's what happens to husbands when their wives are pregnant, and not to mention have been running the household and parenting on their own for 6 months!
My third trimester was far better than my first two, as I could relax more, and I was no longer stricken with illness. Strangely the chronic tailbone pain that I experienced in my last pregnancies that caused me to go to the chiropractor every week in excruciating pain did not reveal itself to me this go around. What an amazing blessing! The chronic heartburn however reared it's ugly head and Tums became my savior every day. I am expecting Tennyson to come out with a full head of hair just like my other kids :)
In the past few months I have been reexamining my plan for the birth of my child, and revisiting the memories of my last two births. My first labor with Calista was induced 9 days early due to my showing signs of early preeclamsia. One morning I woke up with a major headache, high blood pressure, blurry vision, and I was swollen like Fred Flinstone! When we went into the hospital they decided it would be safer to induce me than to send me home and risk preeclamsia. I don't want to go into the details much, but they kept me over night "prepping" me with hormones for my induction the next morning. That next day I was hooked up to everything you could iomagine and was started on Pitocin. By just 3cm dilated, I was in such excruciating pain that I had to get an epidural. The aftermath of my labor was rough on me. The anesthesia lasted 2 hours after I gave birth and I couldn't get out of bed. I have extremely sensitive skin so after the tape was removed from my back I had an itchy rash and bright red skin for 2 full weeks postpartum! I developed excruciating spine pain that lasted an entire year, through my next pregnancy and beyond.
Early laboring
In a lot of pain and being fed the IV narcotic Fentinol
We wanted our children close together so we planned my second pregancy when Calista was just 5.5 months old. My back pain continued and made my pregnancy rough. I went to physical therapy most of the time and then the last 3 months to a chiropractor every week, sometimes twice a week. I went into natural labor with Bridget just one day before her due date. This time was more barable because my contractions were able to slowly increase instead of being put on Pitocin and immediately have major ones. I was able to labor for a good amount of time until my contractions jumped from 10 minutes to 3 minutes in one contraction. Immediately panic set in and I felt like I wasn't going to get to the hospital in time to get my drugs that I felt like I so desperately needed. There was no way in my mind that I could attempt delivery without an epidural! When we got to the hospital I was 4cm dilated and screaming at the top of my lungs. I had no coping mechanism in place and the whole rush of things was really effecting my ability to focus on relaxing and letting my body do what it needed to do. I was immediately administered an epidural and so began the cycle I hated so much before. This time my epidural was really scary because I had a shooting pain go down my leg and then back up which caused me to scream and everyone in the room to jump back! My back pain in the next year was so bad that I started going to spinal specialists to try to figure exactly what was going on with my spine. I just got the run around from all of them saying that they could not really pin point a specific problem and that I should just wait it out.
Very happy once the epidural kicked in!
This third pregnancy was planned just as our firt two and I got pregnant right before Keiffer deployed to make sure he would be back for the last weeks of my pregnancy and for the birth. I spent a great deal of time thinking about how I want this labor and delivery to play out. I watched the documentary, "The Business of Being Born" and it really changed my perspective on childbirth. My birthing experiences were in many ways treated as medical problems that needed to be fixed, and the fear that was instilled in me disabled my ability to cope with the pain and to fear the whole birthing process.
I have decided to attempt a naural drug and monitor-free labor and delivery. I feel like I trust my body to know what to do and to be able to labor and birth this baby into this world gently and in minimal discomfort. I have armed myself with knowledge, affirmations, essential oils, and most recently some hypnobirthing techniques. I know that I can prepare as much as possible and plan for things to happen a certain way, but usually things always change at the last second. I swore I wouldn't do a "birth plan" this go around because my last two labors went nothing according to my plan, but I did end up making one up. This one saying, "I do not want drugs". Hopefully this will help me by taking away the constant recommendations and kind offers from the nurses to drug me to take the pain away. Things may change and I may not be able to cope like I imagine I will be able to. The point is that I have every intention to make this experience more pleasurable for me and my baby and to not repeat my past experiences. I am praying diligently that the Lord will assist me in my attempt and help my body to do what it was made to do. I hear that women who delivery naturally have far quicker labors and easier recoveries. My labors with Calista and Bridget were both around 14 hours. Hopefully this one will be around 6. Wishful thinking right? We shall see :)
