Becoming a Purple Tiger

I have earned my first stripes.  Two purple-y, jagged lines extending from my belly button towards my right side.

Streeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch Marks.

My mom had good luck and was able to make it through her pregnancies without any stretch marks.  Which is quite a feat for a woman who weighed less than 100 pounds when she got pregnant and carried around a 9 pounder.  Needless to say, I got a little cocky in thinking, I would be just the same.

Since month three, I have rubbed delicious smelling cocoa butter lotion on my skin post-shower and it seemed to be doing the trick.  However, I gained four pounds in the last 3 weeks and could actually feel my skin tightening.  Then a few nights ago as I was getting into my pjs (I have taken to wearing my husband's shorts and t-shirts to bed), I saw them.  I couldn't help but feel disappointed.  I know that they are silly, topical, harmless, side effects of the most miraculous thing to ever happen to me, but I still felt that pang of female shame.

As mentioned previously, I see a dermatologist several times a year for a full body scan, i.e. stand in the buff and let some one look look at every inch of my skin with a critical eye.  This time, as he inspected the skin on my belly he said, "Wow, what is that?"  "Is that a bruise?"

He was referring to a very large purple scar that has developed on my stomach.

When I was 18, I got my belly button pierced.  Who didn't?  I stopped wearing jewelry in it as soon as we thought about having a kid, so it had over 6 months to heal.  However, as my outsides stretched to fit my growing insides, the site stretched and left me with some really purple, unattractive scar tissue.  Therefore ruining my chances of reenacting the following photo:

For more awesome pregnancy photo ideas, please click the link below.  It is definitely not a waste of time...

http://imgur.com/a/X4Xdg

My Pregnancy Reading List

A few months ago, my sister forwarded me this very interesting article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/magazine/ina-may-gaskin-and-the-battle-for-at-home-births.html?pagewanted=all

Highlights: The interesting tales and facts of home-birthing with a midwife named Ina May Gaskin, who has lived on a commune in rural Tennessee and has been delivering babies for 35 years.

Since reading that article, I cannot get enough information about this fascinating woman and the birth experience.  I have been reading books, articles and watching movies for about 2 months now (please note:  I have more free time to do this than most, because I am a teacher on summer break) and have learned so much.  I am sharing with you some things I have read and seen.  These are not recommendations and are in no way related to an agenda.  As far as I can tell, this experience is so much of a miracle, and ends with a new human life on this planet, that I do not care if a women has a prescheduled-knocked-out-unconscious birth or a pool-full-of-water-with-every-member-her-family-in-there-with-her birth, as long as her birth is her choice.

Ina May Gaskin released the book Spiritual Midwifery in 1977.  It shares the accounts of nearly 100 earth-loving couples who had their babies delivered by Ina May or one of her trainees.  It then explains her practices in detailed accounts, complete with diagrams and statistics. Then gives some advice to new moms.
Highlights:  Very candid talk about labor and delivery-it is not an illness or disease, has a positive relationship with a hospital and medical doctors, and makes the reader feel very peaceful.
Favorite Quotes: "If you make a practice of trying to feed your baby just to quiet her crying, both of you will learn a bad habit.  Remember that you want to raise her so that you'll still like her when she's three and four years old."
Rudolph after seeing his baby arrive, "The second he was out he looked so familiar to me that it was as if I'd already known him; he looked just like himself.  I really loved seeing him; he was beautiful."
Heads Up: Very intimate black and white photos, terrible (really I mean it) verbiage- nouns that have a more icky connotation 35 years later, and very rooted in the trancey/psychedelic.

 Penny Armstrong did not always know that she wanted to be a midwife.  After feeling the call, she completed an intensive course of study, before accepting a job delivering babies for the Amish women in Lancaster County, PA.  A Midwife's Story shares her experiences with birth, loss, and love.
Highlights: This book was really intriguing. It reads like a novel, not a how-to book and gives a lot of insight and recognition in the Amish culture. It felt familiar having lived in central PA. I recognized the names of the towns and could picture it very clearly.

Favorite Quotes: (unfortunately, I don't have this in front of me so I am paraphrasing) 'I vowed to never watch an Amish woman eat again', in response to watching a woman eat a peanut butter, jelly, mayonnaise, and ham sandwich 45 minutes after labor.
Heads Up: This book does not require much of a disclaimer. It is a true account of her adventures and was a pleasant read.

Fun Fact: An Amish man asks a woman to marry him by giving her a beautifully made wooden clock. An Amish girl would never say she is engaged, but may say, "I have gotten my clock."

 Rikki Lake doesn't strike me as a reliable source of information, but her documentary The Business of being Born was interesting and not at all produced in 90's talk show style.  

Highlights: The women that deliver babies in this movie have wonderful birthing experiences and make the viewer feel a hallowed calm about having a baby.  

Heads Up: This is a documentary, like most, is trying to convince viewers of something.  In this case, Ms. Lake is putting down hospital births and promoting home birthing.  It left me feeling a little uneasy, but I have since talked with my physican and learned more about my hospital and am no longer concerned.

Fun Fact: We regularly gave x-rays to women in the 1940's to see the position of the baby.  Yikes!

Side note: The movie closely follows a few women and when they actually deliver, it feels very personal and there was a lot of sobbing (from me).

Other titles that I read include:

The Best Birth by Sarah McMoyler 
-A good first book, health info, promotes the McMoyler Method of labor and delivery, anti-Lamaze

What to Expect when you are Expecting by Heidi Murkoff 
-Gives facts about your pregnancy week by week, answers lots of questions about what is normal or not, and provides good info for partners too

Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding by Ina May Gaskin
-Probably more info than most people need, but great suggestions on how to make breastfeeding the most effective right from the start


I have checked out and thumbed through about a half dozen others, but these are some that I was able to extract something useful from.  There are thousands and thousands of books out there, good luck!

Today I Learned that TIL is an acronym for Today I Learned

TIL:

1.  Bumper Pads are no longer considered safe.  The idea behind them is that it protects your baby from smashing their head into the edges of the crib.  The concern is that they could end up smoshed up against the bumper pad and have their little face pressed into the material, i.e. not be able to breathe.  While they are cute, make sense as far as avoiding bruises, and were recommended to me by several good parents, I have taken mine back to the store.


2. Cribs are expensive and should be.  After looking at several stores, I registered for a crib from Baby's R Us.  My very kind parents bought it for us and it arrived two days ago.  This crib, like most nowadays, converts into a toddler bed.  It also has 3 drawers and the changing table attached.  It looked like a great way to cover a lot of bases.  Then we opened the box.  Several pieces of wood were broken, not like scratched and dinged, but snapped in half.  Full on busted.  After sitting in a pile of styrofoam and crib parts for about 20 minutes, I called the store to see what we could do.  The store offered to send us a new one to replace the one we had just completely unwrapped, but after seeing that it was broken already, it made us leary to put our kid in it.  I was really bummed.  It was NOT cheap (400 clams), but it was cheap (if you know what I mean).  After doing a lot of research, we discovered a store called USA Baby (I highly recommend it if you have one in your area) which looks a lot more like a furniture store, not an all-in-one store.  We purchased a Baby's Dream crib today that is made of solid wood(no particle board) and got a good deal because it was the floor model, but these cribs run from $400-$1200.  I was really discouraged after working with our first crib, but now feel excited that we purchased something safe, pretty, and of good quality.

A link to the Baby's Dream furniture:     http://www.babysdream.com/


3.  My doctor will not stop me if I go into labor any time after 34 weeks.  A full term baby is considered any kiddo who has cooked for 36 weeks, but even if I go into labor two weeks before then, it is all systems go.  At 34 weeks, the baby usually does just fine, it is just crazy to think that 34 weeks is only 2 weeks away.


4. Ear thermometers are not okay for babies.  Their little ear canals are so fresh and delicate, that it dangerous to put anything in there.  So I am logging on to my Target registry to remove the one that says "Infant safe" that I registered for.  Up the pooper is the only way to get an accurate temp.  So rectal  thermometer it is.