Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Day Sixteen

22 weeks pregnant today =)


Well, this morning I was supposed to run to the farm for more milk, but the girl I was going to take changed her mind so I decided to take that and run with sleeping in = P. The kids were still dead asleep, so I didn't want to wake them up for it either. I can go a day without having it. My prenatal appointment was this morning, though, so I couldn't sleep too long as I still had to make everyone breakfast and then clean up and be ready. We all got up and I made us some eggs and buttered Hawaiian bread. It was quite yummy. Hayden helped me clean up and I vacuumed the floors and cleaned the bathroom. I don't know why, but I always have to make sure I clean my bathroom very well when I know someone is coming over even though more than half the time the person or people don't even end up using it! Better safe than sorry I guess lol. I set the kids up with some drawing stuff they could do to keep quiet if they stayed downstairs, or I let them pick a movie to watch upstairs in the toy room. I was all ready but still had some time, so I decided to go ahead and do some more recordings of the heartbeat and count BPMs. It was faster today than before, but stil beautifully normal. It's getting much louder now as baby is growing. 


Nina, my midwife, arrived and we settled in. I hadn't seen or really talked to her since my last appointment because she's been on holiday. She got to go to the Midwifery Today conference hosted here in Germany. I wanted to go to that sooo very badly since it was so close and had such amazing speakers and topics, but I'm glad I ended up not being able to go because Denton is now gone and I would've had no one at all to watch the kids. It's times like these when I realize things happen for a reason, and we can't get all upset for not getting things we really want because it's most likely for a reason. Being able to accept loss or not getting what you want, will leave you much happier than mourning over what you can't change. We chatted a bit over what she learned, who she met, and just her overall experience. Yes, she met Ina May Gaskin, and I am totally jealous about that lol. She also told me about the Turkish Midwifery conference she went to. Apparently the state of maternity in Turkey is even worse than in the US, and that's pretty hard to do lol. Things like all first time mothers must give birth tied to stirrups, must have an episiotomy, must have pitocin, etc, and the c-section rate is over 50%. That is just alarmingly disgusting. She did tell me that she learned from a speaker that when one receives pitocin, artificial oxytocin, the body shuts down natural oxytocin production, and therefore can lead to greater risk of hemorrhaging after birth because pitocin is typically shut off and the body is still not making oxytocin to help stop bleeding. This lack of natural oxytocin also prevents the "birth high" or surge of endorphins called the "love cocktail" that helps mom fall in love with baby after birth. If we have a nation with such great numbers of women receiving pitocin during labor and unable to receive the natural "love cocktail" after birth, what will that say about our emotional ability as people especially relating to our children compared to what it could be? It is things like this that further reinforce my absolute love of knowledge and being able to make a choice such as homebirth so I can give not only my baby the best start in life, but the both of us the best start as a family.


So, after all that was done I did the little urine test stick to test for proteins and sugars and it came back wonderfully normal as usual. She then took my blood pressure- normal as well. She asked my weight and marked it down. She then measured fundal height and then belly circumference- the latter I have never had done before, and it was quite alarming to hear the number, especially because it was centimeters lol. My fundal height was great, a week below, but that is completely normal. She tried to hear for the heartbeat with her fetoscope to no avail which we both expected, but I let her listen to my recordings of the baby's heartbeat on the phone. She was quite intrigued by this. At the conference, she had learned about a new gadget that's pretty much a mechanical fetoscope with a microphone to amplify the sound but does not use doppler ultrasound, and she is looking into buying one of those, so hopefully in the near future more of her moms will have the ability to listen to their baby's heartbeats sooner than with the fetoscope, and without the risks of using doppler ultrasound. After all that she marked everything down in my Mutterpass, in her notes, and we chatted a bit more before she left. It's so nice that I don't even have to leave my house for my appointments, I don't have to worry about what to do with the kids, I have a care provider that fully supports me and shares my philosophies in pregnancy, labor, and birth, and that we have a personal relationship on top of the professional one- not to mention that it's all fully covered by insurance =) You just don't hear very many women with such a good experience. I know in my past 2 pregnancies it was always going to the clinic, waiting a long time in a place full of germs or sick people, going back to just have someone mark off a checklist in 15 minutes or less, and send you on your way to make room for the next patient. I didn't always get to see the same provider, and wasn't guaranteed who would be there to catch the baby. Luckily, I was smart enough to change that when Brayden came around. His daddy was always guaranteed the blessing of catching his baby. I'm only hoping we'll have the same this time around =/ Praying everyday Daddy will be home when the baby is born, but after more news today I don't have my hopes too high, but this is the Army, what's put out this morning can change by the afternoon =/ 


Well, Nina left and I turned my phone on to see that I had missed a call from Denton. That put another big smile on my face. I called him back right away and let him know how things went and he was happy. We went over some business I needed to take care of and he talked to the kids for a bit. We got off and I ate a little bit because by that time I was pretty hungry. I got myself and the kids ready, and we headed out. First stop was the post office. Got a nice Halloween card from Denton's grandma, along with a stack of bills lol. Thanking the Lord Jesus that they are bills we can pay on time every time, though, and they will be paid OFF come tax time! Next stop was our phone company. There's no use in ever calling because of the long wait time, and then 9 times out of 10 you end up with someone who doesn't speak more than a few words of English but knows how to tell you "no one here speaks English, call later" and then hangs up on you. I take the time to avoid the frustration and just drive down to the office. I needed to ask how much we are spending when Denton uses his phone to call or receive a call. It wasn't as extreme as I thought, but still pretty bad. Pretty much 30 minutes of talking costs 21 euro which is equal to about $30. Ridiculous, and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it except wait for the possible phone lines. Let's just say I don't ever want anything to do with where he is on a personal level, they suck at everything. 


After that I headed to vehicle registration to pick up a form and ask questions so we can further work on getting a car transferred over to us, but it makes it harder when it's non-operational =/. Im really hoping God will work his magic on this one time-wise so we can at least get it in our name soon and exhale. After that, headed over to the library to see if they had the books that Hayden's class is reading this week so he could get caught up on that, but surprisingly they didn't, so we left and headed to the PX. Tomorrow at school is crazy hair day, and I wanted to find some color hair spray for Hayden, but they were all out of the normal stock they carried, which is very very little. One would think the PX would have been smart enough to make a big order of that for Halloween, but then again this is a European based PX we're talking about- they can't always be on the ball with these things. We went over to the commissary to get a few things for dinner and some cupcake stuff to make cupcakes for the Halloween party this Saturday. After all that it was finally time to head home. We got home and I ate a little snack. We'd surprisingly been out for a few hours, so naturally I was hungry again. I did some more laundry and then decided it was time for dinner. We had some lumpia, PF Chang's beef and veggies, and some brown rice. As I was cooking I went over Hayden's words for the week with him a few times and then finally quizzed him. He got 13 out of 15 on his first try- that is such a good job. By the time we were done, dinner was on the table, and Brayden had already started stuffing his face before we could even pray lol. We dug in, enjoyed, and then it was time to get some reading in. We got in a whole hour to cover the 3 nights we've neglected to do. Hayden did such a great job. Really, just a month ago I would have to fight with him to read a few sentences, and now he doesn't want to stop unless he's tired. Such a big turnaround.


So by the time we were finished, Brayden was already passed out on my arm. I got up to put dinner away, tidy up a bit, and then brought up some laundry to fold and put more in the dryer and washer. Hayden helped me every step of the way. Walking up from the basement to the upstairs makes me so so happy that we chose the 3 story instead of the 4-story. I'd be hooking up some kind of makeshift rope and pulley system for the laundry if that were the case, but the stairs would still be a nightmare. As I get further and further in this pregnancy, regular everyday things like climbing stairs gets harder and harder- it stinks, but also helps me realize I need to try my best to keep fit throughout life so that doesn't up being an everyday thing I end up with as I age in bad health like most of my family. After we finished, I got the bed climb-in ready and went downstairs to grab Brayden and bring him up. Hayden and I crawled into bed, I started this, and he passed out soon after. Tomorrow, I'd really like to get out to the farm to replenish my milk supply, but we'll see how I feel about that in the morning lol. I also need to work on more volunteer stuff, get lots of laundry and *put away* and prepare for our final soccer game of the season. I will *have* to fit a nap in there somewhere before Hayden gets home, though, or else it will most certainly be tough.


Goodnight.

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