Humiliating Moments in Parenthood Part One

• The latest entry: Recently Paige has begun proclaiming random strangers "Bad Guys" when we are shopping. Today in HEB she loudly said "Bad Guy! That's a bad guy Mom!" and franctically pointed to a woman who happened to be black.
  
• Possibly worse (?): Hailey had a front row seat when Paige (baby #3) was born at home three years ago. The experience must have made quite an impression on her because Paige's birth became her version of an ice breaker. If a stranger admired our new baby Hailey would pipe up and start talking about how she saw her little sister being born. The most horrifying incident involving Hailey's version of Paige's birth story occurred when we were in a long line at HEB (apparently the grocery store is the mother's stage for humiliation). A man in his 60's complimented a very smiley baby Paige and Hailey said (loudly of course) "That's Paige. She came out of Mommy's private. She was all bloody and was crying. And Mommy was saying "Ohhhhhh owwwwwww OWWWWWW!" The man was like "Oh. Well."
  
• Worst (?): on an airplane I was nursing nine month old Reese. The Irish version of Hugh Grant who had chatted me up for the two hours while our plane had been delayed was coming down the aisle. I was sitting on the aisle seat. He smiled at me and I returned the smile and lifted my hand to wave. At the exact moment Reese flung back the blanket that was covering her and my exposed breast. There is absolutely NO WAY that Irish Hugh Grant did not see my working breast. On the way back from the toilet he stopped to talk to me and I was so horrified I could barely make eye contact with him. Talk about a grounding experience :)
  
• Absolute worst (?): When Hailey (age 4) and Reese (age 2) escaped from our house in the predawn hours of a weekday morning and were returned by the Leander police. Jason had to retrieve them from the back of the police car (ew). I had to convince the police that I was not an abused wife or drug addict (the girls had said I needed "help" and I was groggy b/c I had taken Nyquil for the first and last time in my life the night before b/c I had a really bad cold).
  

Three weeks old today...

Look--someone had their first bath (last week). Paige kindly removed Penny's umbilical stump while she was helping me change a diaper. Thankfully the thing was hanging by a thread. :)


Time is flying by a little too quickly. I guess that's to be expected but I still don't like it. I wish Penny (and the other girls for that matter) would stay as they are for a little bit longer. It is nice to be easing into our new "normal" but those early days of having a newborn are so precious.

Penny is doing great. We've had some nursing issues but after a visit to the lactation consultant I feel confident that things will become more comfortable for me soon. Apparently Penny has a tight jaw (who knows why) and as she gets bigger she will open her mouth more. Things have certainly improved and I can feed her for 10-15 mins straight before it gets uncomfortable. She's gaining plenty of weight and taking in more than enough milk during each feeding so that makes this momma feel loads better.

My Mom is here this week so yay for all of us! I think we are going to send her home worn out though. Watching her run around after the three older girls makes me very glad I had my kids young, haha!

Introducing Penelope Jane :)

Penelope made her grand entrance on Saturday, May 30th at 9:28 p.m. 7lbs, 8 oz, 19 inches long--our biggest baby by half a pound!

Birth Story:

My water broke 1:30 a.m. Thursday. For whatever reason labor would start up, then stop. I'm Group B Strep positive so the fact that my water was broken before the onset of labor was a concern. Our midwife was comfortable with us staying at home waiting on labor as long as we were comfortable and I didn't run a fever and Baby seemed ok (I monitored the baby with a Doppler every hour and kept track of her movements and made sure my amniotic fluid stayed clear).

Saturday morning my contractions picked up and were very strong. We were all sure this was it! From 3:30 a.m. until 9:15 a.m. I had a pretty decent labor pattern going and then it just...stopped. I called our midwife and she headed over to our house (she had already been over multiple times to check on us, gave me herbs to help labor get rolling, administered an antibiotic injection to protect Baby, offer moral support and make sure we were comfortable with our decision to stay at home).

Our midwife and her assistant arrived and we decided to do our first internal exam to see what was happening--a last ditch effort to stimulate labor and to see if perhaps I was dilated to a 7 or 8 and could be stretched). I was dilated to 3-4 cm--kind of disappointing since I had been laboring on/off for what seemed like forever. We did discover that my cervix was posterior so she pulled it forward and did a "rough" internal exam (no big deal) to try to stimulate contractions. I spent 4o mins on the breast pump and got one kind of lame contraction (the day before I had spent about an hour on the pump and had gotten several good contractions). Our midwife listened to Baby during the contraction and heard a small heart deceleration and recommended that we transfer. Of course we had no argument and we packed our stuff, made arrangements for the girls and then headed off to the hospital.

On the way there labor started up in a big way. By the time I was checked at the hospital I was 6-7 cm dilated and having SUPER strong contractions. After a lot of consideration I decided to get an epidural for several reasons: I had this horrible pain on one side of my butt that would not go away in between contractions, I could not stand all these strangers coming in and out of my room, I had none of the comfort measures that I had counted on using--I had figured I would be having a c-section since I had already had one with Reese, and I learned that my doctor would only allow pushing while lying on my back--and I have never been able to handle contractions while lying down! Plus there was this underlying feeling of hostility from the doctor and some of the staff and that was making concentrating on my labor nearly impossible.

I got the epidural at 8 cm and then relaxed and joked with the people I had asked to attend our birth. My two oldest girls were there and they were very loving towards their old mom :) There were a few run ins with what I call "dumb hospital protocol"--nurse didn't want our kids there, doctor only wanted two people in the room, doctor wasn't too keen when I requested no episiotomy, etc--but overall the staff (somewhat reluctantly) respected our wishes. I protested and our group was "allowed" to stay and I got a nasty tear instead of an episiotomy (no help from the doc there). The birth itself was extremely easy--I pushed Baby out within two contractions and we were all shrieking "IT'S A GIRL!" in no time :)

While certainly not the birth that we planned I can say it was a good experience. I managed to avoid a c-section. The absolute only intervention I received was an epidural--I was very happy to have avoided pitocin (not that I'm sure I could have had any considering I had had a previous c-section). I feel like my baby had a gentle labor and while I don't think the doctor handled her very gently she was in my arms quickly and stayed there. As well as everything went, this experience reaffirmed our love and support of home birth. Once you've had a baby at home, it is very difficult to "go back" to a hospital environment. Not that the hospital is bad--we thank God that it's there! But the two experiences are almost night and day. If we ever are blessed to be pregnant again (overwhelming thought that it is at this moment), we would definitely aim for welcoming our baby at home again!

Some of my favorite pictures from labor:

Checking Baby's heartbeat.


Contracting after pumping (all that colostrum wasted...such a shame).


I like Jason's pose here. I would have stayed on the potty forever if the seat were softer. I was being extremely whiny and felt very sorry for myself in this picture. Huuuuuurt!



It wasn't exactly planned but two of my teenage nieces ended being there for Penny's birth. My sister swears they weren't traumatized by the experience (Grace looks a little pale though...). As you can see, my two older girls thought it was a pretty rockin' event :)


Ahhh-the fruit of my labor. There aren't many moments in life better than this one!!!