Tuesday, February 21, 2012

If things are to ever change...

This is Toronto's health initiative right now for children's health and its stunningly brilliant and my philosophy to a "T"
such a contrast to Georgia sanctioned bullying of fat children on billboards:
Please read and take to heart. Remember that your "fat" talk is being heard by the next generation:

YOUR KIDS ARE LISTENING


What you say and do has a big impact on how your child feels
about food and physical activity, and can also affect your child’s
self-esteem. You are the most important role model for your
young child.
Children form attitudes at an early age. Much of what they
learn before age six will stay with them for the rest of their
lives. Remember to:
• Emphasize what’s special and unique about your child,
yourself and others.
• Avoid criticizing your body, your child’s body or the bodies
of other people.
• Let your child decide how much to eat. You decide
what food to offer and when and where to eat.
• Never use food as a reward or punishment.
• Set limits on your child’s TV, computer and video game time
and go outside to play together instead.
• Praise your child’s actions, behaviours and abilities often.


SOME THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND
• Active parents have active children. Instead of just
watching your child play, join in.
• Teach your child that body images used by the media are not
realistic. Healthy bodies come in many shapes and sizes.
• Focus on what your daughter does well, not her body shape.
Research shows that fathers play an important role in how
their daughters see themselves.
• Children learn healthy habits from their parents. When it
comes to healthy eating, physical activity and self-esteem,
be a positive role model for your young child.
Being a parent isn’t always easy. If you find you could
use a little help, contact us.
Call Toronto Health Connection at 416-338-7600

From HERE


and a great post by Ragen on getting moms to lose weight before becoming pregnant: Why not just teach them how to fly?...

" the biggest problem with this situation is that it doesn’t matter if being thin would be better for women who want to become pregnant because there is not a single proven method to make them thin. If women with narrow hips have worse pregnancy outcomes the solution isn’t to try to make them have wider hips.  If short women have more negative outcomes the solution is not to try to make them tall.  It might also be better for pregnant women to be able to fly but nobody is running a “Flying Preggos Initiatives”.  Because there is absolutely no evidence that we can get any of those things done.  Just like there is no evidence that we can make fat people thin."




and...

The same group who created those awful billboards is training hospital personnel on the importance of bringing up weight.

why in holy hell?

Can we just bring up healthy practices? and newsflash: fat people know they are fat.

Like I tried to tell the southern OB you don't know if the thin as a rail 18 y.o. pregnant for the third or fifth time woman eats a diet strictly of mountain dew and ho-ho's. Singling out fat folks ignores the whole 'other range of sizes that might benefit from better diet and exercise. And don't berate or chastise a fat person until you have asked what their daily practices are.  And work hard to trust. Just because you have a firmly held belief in calories in/ calories out ignoring the vast differences in human metabolism and intricacies of the human body on the entire spectrum.... Just because you think you know what a person eats and does by looking at them.. try, try to trust them and LISTEN. 

There is more danger in overweight people who avoid health care at all costs because they are tired of the stigma. Its only really in the healthcare setting where I can pay someone $300 to chastise me after not listening to me. Or sitting through their version of a diet: 

I really did just have a doctor say "Oh I don't believe in dieting... Just a small breakfast, try to keep lunch under 500 calories and dinner at 5:00 small too, NO SNACKING WHATSOEVER and never eat dessert."

Well doctor if it looks like a diet and quacks like a diet...

Focus on Health. NOT size.

the end.

Monday, February 20, 2012

when a blog post unravels...

** 10 weeks 5 days: sick, sick, sick. not functioning but mind is getting clearer and thinking like mad on too many things that I shouldn't (like planning this birth, had a meeting with the new midwife planned and that morning when I could. not. stop. throwing up her assistant called to say she was at a birth. Did I want to come at noon. I said no I'm too sick I'll call when I feel better. I haven't called. Was it a sign, I think not I am leaning toward midwife. But I have also told Kyle we could go to the trust birth conference in April and attend a newborn resuscitation course from one of the best midwives in the country and feel more confident doing this ourselves... I don't know... brain in a pretzel.) I have been consumed with thoughts on my church's position on gay marriage and feeling a shift in perspective within myself. This post concerned me greatly.

And did you know big bloggers MckMama and Dooce are getting divorced? I kind of only read Cjane and NieNie that much anymore even though I have to calm myself down every time I click there knowing that they cut their newborn baby boys :( Even though if they have researched natural childbirth they SURELY have to know better than to be cutters...

Then there has been Whitney - so sad. And Elizabeth Smart getting married - so happy. Then a lengthy email exchange with the busy southern OB who I linked to in a previous post on why its not ok to make fun of fat patients on your blog. He didn't get it. In case you need reminding again OB's can be a dense scary bunch - GET A MIDWIFE!!! (not a medwife under scrutiny of a dense OB, a midwife, preferably a homebirth midwife)

I had in my mind this whole cerebral post on autonomy and do we really have it in many areas of our life... but another day. I don't feel good.


So I will just write a quick update on my kids since this is after all a family blog... sort of:

Benjamin

- Has been first chair in Tuba consistently for a few weeks now.
-Is working on a BIG Rube Goldberg machine project for science class and I have been cussing the skies that its due during my height of morning sickness.
-He seems so much older to me lately and looking older too. But I remember that he is still a little boy when the trash he was supposed to take out is still in the living room the next morning because he didn't want to go out in the dark.
-He started writing a book - its about vampires and actually very good. I hope he finishes it.

Ella.
-Oh Ella My little grown up from the womb.
- Not to be outdone she started a book too about an adopted girl from China who saves her allowance to fly to china and find her birth parents. I said Ella you should probably google a ticket to china - its quite a bit more than you can save up from allowances. Not to be defeated - the main character then raids her college savings to afford the trip - so the book continues.
- She loves to lip synch to Adele and Taylor Swift. I prefer Adele. (Is Adele still smoking? COME ON girl! stop it already)
-I told someone I let Ella and Maiya go to the park alone. I think her head went up in flames like ghostrider. Hey Free-range isn't for everyone. (PS. Elizabeth Smart was taken from her BED... you cant control every risk) Life is to be lived to not be afraid of.

Maiya.
-In  few short weeks she got her hair cut short and lost both front teeth. I can barely recognize her.
-She is a reading champ - in fact she can read upside down and backwards the best (ummm yes that is a sign of a slight problem which we have suspected.)
-The girl is uber patient with all of her friends of which she has many but is a little short with us
-She is super artistic - with any medium - you name it she's cutting, painting drawing, sculpting

Cora.
-Clothes still optional.
-watching way too much TV while I am sick. Guilt successfully induced.
-LOVES bathtime HATES bedtime - hence has ended up in our bed quite often lately
-Late talker who doesn't stop to breath now she is a stream of endless chatter. Some side splitting funny stuff.

PJ
-still breastfeeding.
-still NOT walking. He totally can. He's done it and we have video proof but he just chooses not to - why when you can do this super fast crawling and cool knee scoot thing. I am hoping he is walking by time I am done being sick and we go back to church and he's in nursery because that would be a tad bit embarrassing.
-super, super sweet baby and if I have babied him too much I consider that nothing but positive.

Boo
-The name we have called the baby to be.
Because as the kids say just like Boo Radley the baby is pale white and stays inside all the time. Just no treats left in trees for us.
We are strongly considering NOT finding out the sex of the baby this time around until you know, the actual birthday.
But I am thinking boy.
Just because we have the most beautiful girl name picked out: Nola Anne  - there it is, I have claimed it DON'T STEAL IT!!
Boy names: none.


see it will be a boy.

Monday, February 06, 2012

8 weeks 5 days... decisions, decisions...



I drove past my midwife's office shortly after moving here in 2006, "Natural Birth Services" was on the building. I wondered if that was a doula or a midwife and made a mental note to research before next pregnancy.

Then I didn't research because I forgot and got pregnant and was so sick I just went with the gyn office I was already at. Jennifer Allen was ok in the ob department, still threatened the BIG baby card and early inductions and my uneducated self was scared and didn't want to be induced so I did what any ol idiot would do I self-induced.

Membranes stripped.
sex
jumping jacks
SPICY food
and every other thing that google will turn up on natural inductions techniques cept for castor oil, because I'd had a baby before and adding diarrhea was not enticing to that process.

So I ended up in the hospital with contractions over two weeks before Cora's due date and ended up on Pitocin... and you know the rest of that story. The first time Kyle and I were alone after her birth I said and I quote:

"If I ever have another baby, I am not going to any hospital"

So when Cora was nine months old I interviewed Pam at Natural Birth Services. I also had phone interviews with Allen Birthing center midwives, Hillary Lyndsey, and two others I can't think of now...

Because I knew that if I waited till there was a positive pregnancy test I'd be too barfy to interview then.

Now between my interview with Pam and actually conceiving PJ - Pam and Hillary combined practices and bought an adorable little house in Sherman and opened a beautiful Birth Center: House of Birth.

Thing is, I didn't want a birth center birth. I wanted a homebirth.

But Pam was awesome and since she lives in Anna she agreed to attend my homebirth.

And it was wonderful!! (Ya'll know that)

Now here I am at baby # 6

And Pam and Hillary's House of Birth is bustling.

And I still don't want a birth center birth.

I kind of think birth centers are like renting a room for your homebirth. All the joys of a homebirth plus other peoples germs.

A freestanding birth center has no more technology than a homebirth midwife brings to your home.

So all the same safety net as a homebirth but you get the added benefit of traveling in labor... no thank you.

and traveling home 4-6 hours after the birth...again  no thank you.

The only way I'd consider a freestanding birth center is if my husband was dead set against a homebirth (actually I'm lucky Kyle is so cool because if my husband was that non-understanding I'd just un-invite him to the birth... "Uncomfortable with a homebirth hunny?" " I'm sorry, but don't come.")

or... if my home was way too far away from a back up hospital.

Add to my fears of a freestanding birth center:

Its not manned at all hours and I don't have a key. Meaning not only do I have to show up I have to trust that I can reach all midwives and that they will show up on time too - ya know to let me in and all.

Hear about the lady who gave birth on the porch at Allen Birthing center. Yeah. I'd be pissed.

At home the worst is we deliver alone. I'd take that any day over delivering on the porch out in the open.

It would seem from emails that Pam and Hillary are very much into their birth center and while they will agree to attend my homebirth would prefer I come to the birthing center.  Financial incentive to do such as well. As Ron White would say "I got a coupin"


sigh...


so I am in a dilemma...

I don't want my birth reluctantly attended. Not that I think Pam would have that attitude. But if she does have mothers at the birth center and me here birthing at home....

I have an interview with another homebirth midwife so I will see how that goes. Funny its the midwife who ended up on the porch with that mom.

But I have already clicked with Pam.

And a woman of my BMI... once you click with a healthcare provider you tend to stay with said healthcare provider.

Then I have the completely crazy notion of us doing this alone...

I don't think we will. But the thought is there.

The BEST midwife... is as Micheal Odent puts it, an:

 "experienced, low-profile, motherly, and silent midwife... a midwife able to remain silent even when the mother-to-be says silly words, such as, for example, "kill me," "let me die," etc... a midwife who will just make sure that the baby will not fall down on the floor."




 Its hard as I put it to Kyle, I am trying to find someone who will do nothing for me.

That is exactly what I want, no interventions, no unnecessary coaching, having done this 5 times already I don't have any list of questions for prenatal appointments.

So about $4000 to the best person to be there if anything goes wrong. And do nothing when it goes right.

Which it does 98% of the time.

PS. I found the forum where they bashed Cjane for page after page after page for her recent birth.

so sad.


*** disclaimer: I am glad birth centers exist I think they are vastly better than current labor and delivery floors especially if you want natural childbirth - so I am happy they are there.

Sunday, February 05, 2012

some things that are helping:

I am sick.

it sucks.

like soul sucking depression of depths unknown.


but some things that have helped me so far:

Morning sickness or Hyperemesis Gravidarium, or HG... causes for me:

this unrelenting bad taste in my mouth,

its like a cross between metal, vinegar and raw rotten meat taste.

And its there ALL. THE. TIME.

and get this toothpaste tastes awful, don't even suggest a brand I've tried them all. And even if I use none brushing make me gag and flossing past my two front teeth GUARANTEES vomiting.

But I read on Knocked up and Knocked over about swishing with baking soda and Lord shined down upon my soul it helps. Only for about five minutes - but it helps.

So I am doing that.


Then I decided from the abnormally large amount of stomach acid that I can throw up at any moment that I have a problem there so I added max strength zantac to my homemade dilectin. And IT HELPS!!

and then there is the making of too much spit production and I have just had to deal with that.

I seriously can't come up with any possible reason biologically for this crap.

oh well..

I hear morning sickness is during the phase of placenta production.  So I regard that extra organ with reverence. Because if during the sickest I ever get in my life I make a whole other organ that grows a tiny human. Its pretty cool

and barf inducing.

and I have kept myself occupied while on the couch (I hate being this lazy) by watching as much of Downtown Abbey as I can access and reading all of this OB's blog: http://laboranddeliverance.blogspot.com/

Because any super busy OB in the deep, deep south who fights for VBAC's and thinks pitocin should be outlawed is a hero of mine even if the blog is sprinkled with crude obesity jokes.