Thank you VERY much to everyone who read this blog! In case you're interested in how the actual birth went for us (sans epidural), here is the play-by-play...

On Thursday, March 13th, 2008, I went to my midwife for a 1pm visit. Since I was due on March 17th, she asked if she could do an internal exam and if I wouldn't mind if she stimulated the cervix just a little bit with her finger to nudge things along. She said this was nothing like inducing, but just a little nudge. I said okay. When she checked me, she said the baby was really low, my cervix was 75 percent effaced, and I was dilated about 1 to 2 centimeters. She said the whole picture made her very optimistic that we might be having a baby that weekend. She also mentioned that the internal exam and her slight stimulation might cause some cramping.

That afternoon, I did feel cramping and had some bloody show -- and I didn't know if it was just a byproduct of the internal exam or if it meant labor was beginning. That night I started to feel a lot of cramping. By midnight I started to think that the cramping was coming kind of regularly and that maybe this was contractions. Still, I thought it could be nothing or "false" labor, so I tried to go to sleep. But I was in too much pain to sleep, so I finally woke my husband up around 5 am and told him I thought something might be happening. We started timing the cramps and found they were coming fairly regularly -- around every 10 minutes -- but sometimes they were coming every 7 minutes or every 15 minutes. We decided to wait until my midwife's office was open on Friday morning to call. When we reached her around 9 am, she said that this could be very early labor or this could go away. She said to keep monitoring the contractions.

Read More

Watch Rachel's belly grow over the course of her pregnancy in this slideshow!

Read More

Congratulations to Rachel and her new baby daughter, Lena! Lena was born on Saturday, March 15, weighing in at 7 lbs. 7 oz. and measuring 20 inches long. Mom and Lena are both doing great!

Read More

I've kind of become a woman obsessed -- obsessed with labor and all of the fear, anticipation, and unpredictability that it entails. Pretty much the only thing I can think about lately is the fact that it's coming soon (I'm due March 17th), it could happen at any time, and I can't know ahead of time how it will all unfold. Read More

I'm realizing in these last weeks of pregnancy, now more than ever, that there's a reason we have the stereotypical image of pregnant women lying around with their bare feet up. It's because that's what we should all be doing at this stage! My body is aching in ways I didn't know it could ache, and when I talk to other women who are in their ninth month, they, too, feel discomfort like they've never known before (for the most part). So what is it with our society these days that we work up until our water breaks and try to keep up with normal life until the very last minute before the baby pops out?

 

Read More

Does anyone ever feel prepared for the baby to arrive? No matter what I do to get things ready (classes, reading, research, organizing frenzies, trips to Buy Buy Baby, etc.), I cannot seem to relax and feel ready. The other night I couldn't sleep again so I finally gave up on the idea of shuteye at 5 a.m., and instead organized my hospital bag and cleared out the hand-me-down maternity clothes I never wore that were cluttering up the nursery closet. Did I feel any sense of relief after having checked those things off my list? Strangely, no. Despite repeated attempts like these to get things done, everything still feels so unsettled and overwhelming.

Granted, I have just under four weeks to go before my due date, so I'm supposed to have a little more time to prepare, but I'm very aware of the fact that my baby will technically be full term (37 weeks) in less than ONE week and it's not beyond the realm of possibilities that she could decide to arrive then -- or sooner!

Read More

Valentine’s Day is not even half over and my day is already complete. My husband and I have plans to go to dinner tonight—much needed plans, by the way, since lately our lives have consisted of hanging around the apartment with me on the couch with a heating pad—so I was already happy that we were going to have an official date. But I just got a lovely bouquet of tulips from him delivered to my desk with a card telling me that I’m beautiful (and several other sweet things). I can’t express how nice it is to hear that someone finds me appealing and loveable while I’m the largest I’ve ever been in my life, and probably the grumpiest too. Now that is what a pregnant woman wants to hear. Of course it made me quite teary—with joy, though, this time, so it’s okay. And fortunately, I tucked a Valentine’s Day card in his bag so that he’d find it at the office and feel loved today too.
 
Even if you think Valentine’s Day is cheesy or commercial, I hope you get to share that lovin’ feeling with someone today—it definitely made me feel better. Read More

So I've been having some very intense, searing pain in my pelvis, leg and back. I had it a few times a little while ago to a lesser degree, and my midwife deduced that it was nerve pain (possibly sciatica pain). She gave me some helpful suggestions on how to alleviate it -- things like shifting position, applying heat, etc. -- similar to what the pregnancy books say about nerve pain. And from what I've read, this pain is not unusual for pregnancy, but lately, it's been back with a vengeance.
  Read More

Why do some people feel the need to tell pregnant women how little sleep they're going to get once the baby arrives? Or how my husband and I are never going to go out to another movie again for the rest of our lives? Or how parenthood is going to be so much work that this is our last chance EVER to go on a trip or do anything remotely fun before we face our inevitable doom? I've heard it one too many times. I KNOW being a mom is going to be a lot of work and I've signed up for that, but I'm fairly sure that it's also going to be pretty darn wonderful and beyond worth it, otherwise nobody would still be doing this.

So I don't need to dwell on the "disaster" that awaits me after labor. Instead, I prefer to focus on the absolutely lovely things that thoughtful people have told me about parenthood. Here are a few comments that have made me really happy:

Read More

Success! I found our pediatrician!

I'd set up appointments to meet with a few doctors in Hoboken because I'd really rather not have to commute into Manhattan for my baby's doctor visits. I've heard (and I can imagine) that it's a big pain in the neck to go into the city on the train with a newborn for the many upcoming doctor visits, so I wanted to avoid that schlep if I could. But I wasn't sure I was going to find a pediatrician I liked in this area because traditionally, there haven't been that many pediatric practices in Hoboken. Luckily, more have opened up here in recent years, so I was hopeful I might find one I liked.

Read More