I've been thinking a lot about babies lately
One of my best friends - I have three - just had a baby. The four of us were sitting around the table the other day, purportedly to enjoy each other's company, but also because new baby snuggles are different than older baby snuggles and must be had before the baby is no longer new. Another friend who's said for years she doesn't want to have kids told us how she was going to have surgery, in large part to save her fertility. After seeing her peers have kids, she's still not sure she wants to have any of her own, but she wants to keep her options open. The fourth of our group has recently decided that while she used to think she wanted kids, she definitely does not anymore.
My work BFF is expecting her first child the same week as her first wedding anniversary. She's doing well, but also dealing with all the weirdness of a first pregnancy. It is so strange to temporarily share your body with another person. It's absolutely awful, except hormones sometimes trick you into thinking otherwise, and, even more importantly, there's the knowledge of the end result, which is pretty much the greatest thing in the world. Still, I mostly didn't love pregnancy, just the associated motherhood it implied.
We recently made a trip back to my parent's house for the weekend, originally to be at my my cousin's 7-month-old son's baptism, but it also happened to be at the end of another cousin's visit with her 2 1/2-month-old daughter. I definitely played with some babies. A third cousin is expecting her second child the same time as my coworker.
On a sadder note, one of my husband's cousins recently had her third 2nd trimester miscarriage and the delivery of this poor baby posed a lot of potential complications. Mostly babies are a wonderful happy thing, but every once in awhile something tragic happens and reminds you that it isn't always automatic.
I've been on the fence about having more children. Basically I think I want them at some point, but I don't want to be pregnant again, and then I feel selfish for not wanting to be pregnant again, and then I point out that plenty of kids are looking for good homes, so maybe we could adopt and then I wouldn't feel guilty for not wanting to give up control of my body for another 9 months (really 21, since I'd plan to breastfeed for a year after, and really more like 42, since we'd really like to have 4), but adoption is such a long expensive process, so maybe we could be foster parents and see if an adoption comes from that, although that's also difficult, and on and on ....
And then I think about Kyle's cousin and the losses she's faced and I think all of this debating whether or not to have more kids because I don't want to be pregnant again sounds really silly. Some people don't get the option to have more, or any, for that matter. Some people don't get to have control over the size of their family.
Actually, a lot of the details we stress about when thinking about having kids or thinking about how to raise them sound silly. Breast feeding/formula feeding, co-sleeping/crib sleeping, cloth diapers/disposable diapers, - these are not the issues to get worked up about. Are you feeding your child? Great. Does he have a place to sleep? Terrific. Do you change his diapers when they're dirty? Wonderful. Do you hold her when she cries? Then I think you're giving her all she needs to thrive.
One of the miracles of babies I can't get over is how different they all are and yet how perfect they all are at the same time. Each one needs something just a little bit different to be happy and as parents we get the opportunity to try to figure those differences out, and it's an amazing gift.
For now, my two amazing gifts feel like enough. If that ever changes, maybe we'll try to add another to the mix, but for now I am content. I am humbled. I am honored that I get to figure out what makes my two little people unique and how to best bring out their special gifts.
Showing posts with label pregnancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pregnancy. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
A Few Books on Natural Childbirth
I've tried writing this post a couple times and the gremlins keep eating it, so the final result may be a little more rushed than the first few.
Book #2: Childbirth Without Fear by Grantly Dick-Read
Book #3: The Yoga Birth Method: A Step-by-Step Guide for Natural Childbirth by Dorothy Guerra
As the birth of my second child approached, I started panicking that I couldn't remember anything from the childbirth classes I took the first time and, since I was going for a VBAC, only had limited knowledge from my first time around, so I did what any good librarian in this situation would do and I went to the stacks and grabbed a few books.
I found myself gravitating to the natural childbirth books, not because of some strong calling from my inner Earth Mother Goddess, but because they're the ones that have the most information on the actual mechanics of childbirth. Conventional books will tell you plenty about how your medical care will happen, but not a lot about what happens to baby and the parts of your body surrounding baby during this process, so with that goal in mind, I picked up these three books.
Book #1: Orgasmic Birth: Your Guide to a Safe, Satisfying, and Pleasurable Birth Experience by Elizabeth Davis and Debra Pascali-Bonaro
Okay, so the first one I really grabbed because of the title, but it seemed to be the epitome of natural birth, let's bask in the awesomeness of motherhood book, so I figured if nothing else, the positivity would be good to keep me from freaking out as my due date approached. Eventually I learned that this book was written as a follow up to a documentary about natural childbirth and the vital role it plays in women's lives as sexual beings, so we're pretty far down the rabbit hole of the natural childbirth movement here.
Final Verdict: This one was not for me. When I grabbed these books, I was looking for practical specifics and this one seemed more about basking in your awesome achievements as someone who'd given birth. I did finally get around to reading some after my daughter's birth, but the focus on natural birth above all else was off-putting to this woman who'd just had her second C-section. Hearing the implicit message that I was less of a woman for not only giving birth in a hospital but having a C-section and availing myself of 24-hour nursing care and all that modern medicine had to offer, etc. was very frustrating. Or maybe that was just the hormones talking. Anyway, the other two books were practical for pregnant women in many more situations.
Book #2: Childbirth Without Fear by Grantly Dick-Read
I read the 75th anniversary edition with all sorts of forewards and introductions to give this the correct historical context. Basically the early-mid 20th century was not a great time to give birth in a hospital. Women were generally sedated and restrained during birth, receiving episiotomes whether they needed them or not, and often requiring the use of forceps or other tools to deliver the baby. Women had little to no say on how their birth experience would play out. Dick-Read was one of the first voices to speak out against these practices and call for obstetricians to return to practices resembling those of midwives and others practicing more natural methods of childbirth, and this book has been a standard in natural childbirth literature ever since.
Final Verdict: Shockingly philosophical, this sounds like a book written by a man 75 years ago, yet is still very helpful today, and it's somehow comforting to hear even a man discuss the need to include women in their birth experiences and trust their feelings in regards to their own bodies. I think I would have enjoyed this more if I'd read it at the beginning of my pregnancy when I'd had more time to absorb the abstract concepts around pregnancy and childbirth that Dick-Read explores.
I've been a mediocre yoga practitioner for years, but found myself relying more and more on my prenatal yoga DVD the second time around, so reading more about yoga and pregnancy was an obvious choice for me. Guerra spends a lot of time discussing the mental and emotional aspects of yoga before getting into poses and practices that are especially helpful throughout pregnancy and the various stages of childbirth. There is also quite a bit of discussion about the physiology of the pregnant body and all the various changes it has to go through in order to deliver a baby.
Final Verdict: This was by far my favorite of the three. I appreciated Guerra's detailed practical approach, explaining why poses were particularly helpful at each stage and explaining in much more detail than I found anywhere else, the changes your body goes through in each stage of labor before it can progress to the next. I felt much more informed about the changes that would precede my daughter's birth and came away feeling very confident in trusting the signals my body would send me as my delivery date approached. Her poses and routines were spot on in soothing my aching 3rd trimester body and easing the pains of early labor contractions. And since I did end up having a C-section I appreciated her realistic approach to medical intervention and the way she pointed out throughout the book where medical intervention may end up being necessary and why. Natural childbirth is great when it can happen, but in those situations where it can't, going in well-informed and confident in your body and your choices is just as good.
I may not have had an orgasmic birth, but after reading more about the process of childbirth, I was much more confident and calm when it came time for my daughter's birth. When contractions started I was able to work with my body rather than freaking out, and when the decision was made to have a C-section, I was confident that it was the best option available to us.
I may not have had an orgasmic birth, but after reading more about the process of childbirth, I was much more confident and calm when it came time for my daughter's birth. When contractions started I was able to work with my body rather than freaking out, and when the decision was made to have a C-section, I was confident that it was the best option available to us.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Zim's Birth Story
Since I've just returned home from the hospital with my second child, it seems like a good time to tell the story of my first child's birth. Now that two years have passed and I have another birth to compare it to I probably have a little better perspective of the whole process.
My pregnancy with Zim was pretty easy. Other than out of this world heartburn that made it nearly impossible for me to enjoy all my favorite foods (chocolate, tomatoes, chocolate, acidic fruits, chocolate) I didn't have much to complain about, but I still was pretty whiny about being pregnant and, by the end, wanted it to be over yesterday. Seriously, if you're on the fence about having kids, don't. It's a lot of work and only worth it if you're excited about being a parent, in which case, all the crappy stuff is totally made up for by the awesomeness of kids, but there's a lot of crappy stuff.
When I arrived at my 40-week appointment, I was greeted with surprising news. They were moving my due date back 2 weeks. I'd measured about that small all along and since their practice was to induce at 40 weeks, they wanted to make sure I was really 40 weeks. Since I'd already had my last day at work, this meant 2 weeks of sitting at home waiting for a baby who still wasn't ready to come.
At my real 40 week appointment I had to do all manner of testing to make sure there wasn't an excuse to rip this baby out of me immediately. Apparently doctors in my practice were very eager to have babies early or on time. Since I'd had such a quiet pregnancy I hadn't really asked many questions along the way, but this was very different from what we'd learned was standard practice at my childbirth class offered by the hospital we were delivering at, where they said "Babies come when they're ready." I knew all of my mom's kids were at least 1 week late, so I was surprised to learn that my OB thought passing an arbitrary date on the calendar was reason enough to induce labor. But since my child proved to be following in my footsteps everything came back normal and since it was a Friday, they decided to wait until the following week to schedule my induction.
I went in for my check up Tuesday morning, still not dilated, still not having much in the way of contractions (they registered on the monitors, but I barely felt them), so I had one of the most painful procedures ever done, and the doctor dilated me manually to the width of a finger tip in the hopes that that would get my labor started before I showed up at the hospital that evening for my induction.
It didn't.
My husband, my mother, and I arrived at the hospital that evening to check in for my induction. After taking my vitals and getting all the paperwork out of the way, I got to have a lovely cardboard tampon of cervidil inserted into my vagina and lay in bed all night to see if it softened my cervix any.
It didn't.
Then throughout the next day I got to get increasingly higher doses of pitocin introduced to my IV to see if that would start regular contractions that started dilation.
It didn't.
It did however start super painful contractions that made me lose control of my bladder and required some heavy duty pain killers to knock me out until the medication started to leave my system.
At this point I should mention my mom and husband had stayed with me the whole time despite there being only one semi-comfortable piece of furniture in the room that my mom refused to take a turn on, so by this time she was getting pretty loopy from sleep deprivation. Luckily my best friend offered to stop by after work to give my mom an excuse to go back to our house and catch a nap before the action started.
My friend also brought cards and so we played Phase 10 and watched the Cubs lose while my cervix continued refusing to dilate. Unfortunately our card playing got cut short when my best friend started having blood sugar issues and had to raid the vending machines to keep from passing out. So basically, I was bored out of my skull, my husband was exhausted, and my best friend was unexpectedly getting ill. Are we having fun yet?
Also I forgot to mention that the nurse who was on my shift that night was the only labor and delivery nurse I've ever met who didn't exude an aura of calm and caring competence. She was super flighty and kept saying things out loud that I'm sure they teach you in nursing school are the things you shouldn't be telling your patients. She seemed more nervous about this whole thing than I was.
Then the doctor was going to break my water to see if that would start labor, only we didn't get to see what effect that would have had because a few things went wrong all at once. Some blood came out with the waters, making them think my placenta had ruptured. It hadn't and it turned out to only be a little blood. But then the baby went into distress severe enough that a lot of people started moving very quickly and before I knew it I had been whisked into an operating room and was being prepped for surgery. This was truly terrifying, despite the anesthesiologist's best efforts to keep me calm as they prepped me for surgery (the nurse, of course, was no help here). I remember trying not to hyperventilate as they put the mask over my face.
And then I woke up in a dim room in excruciating pain. I didn't have my glasses, so it wasn't worth opening my eyes since I can literally see about 2 inches in front of my face without them. It hurt to breath. It hurt to do just about anything, and then the crazy nurse told me I had a son and he was perfectly healthy and the only problem had been the cord wrapped around his neck. I wanted to cry or say something, but it hurt too much to move, so as tears started rolling down my cheeks the nurse freaked out and ran to get my husband, who also can't deal with girls crying, so somehow I managed to croak out that they were happy tears and that I hurt and he got what was going on enough to know that I really just needed him to hold my hand.
Then I started shivering and my whole world became pain. I knew from the childbirth class that shivering after delivery was normal, but I didn't think I'd be doing it with a fresh wound in my belly. I discovered just how many muscles in my body are connected to my abs - all of them apparently.
Eventually I got into an actual room and because of the circus the floor had been that night, I got one of the super fancy rooms that you're supposed to pay extra for if you book it in advance, but they gave it to me because of the trauma I'd gone through. Unfortunately the reason I got a cool room was also the reason I didn't get proper pain medication right away and so they were still waiting on someone to get a morphine pump for me because they'd run out on their floor (I was the 4th unplanned C-section of the night).
They asked if I wanted to see my baby, and as much as I did, I couldn't even imagine sitting up, let alone seeing my son for the first time and dealing with the crying that was sure to bring on. Luckily, the teacher of my childbirth class had stopped by and when she saw how crazy things were, stayed with my family until they got everything sorted out. She made sure my husband and best friend (and eventually my mother, when she got back) got to see the baby in the nursery. She made sure they gave me the good room when they ran out of regular rooms. She made sure they got my morphine pump up and running and that I had a breast pump available in case they couldn't get my pain under control before I needed to start releasing some breast milk.
My son's first meal was formula, but by the next morning my pain was under control enough that I could sit up enough to breast feed, with a lot of assistance from the wonderful nurses on the floor (Seriously, the one I had the night I delivered my son was the only dud in the batch. Everyone else was fantastic!). And I actually saw him for a few minutes in the middle of the night when I woke up all panicky and couldn't get back to sleep because I just had to see him, even if I could barely sit up enough to hold him. Thank goodness my husband took a picture of that moment. It's one of my all-time favorites.
The next day or two of my hospital stay is kind of a blur. I was in a lot of pain, but the nurses pushed me very hard to get up and go to the bathroom on my own, take a shower, and start walking around. They even made me do a couple laps around the ward pushing my son's bassinet. Mostly I remember staring at them in disbelief every time they gave me another seemingly impossible task to do.
Eventually, though, things settled into a rhythm and while I was still in a lot of pain, I was starting to get the hang of this mothering thing. I definitely recognized my son's cries whenever they brought him back from testing in the nursery. He seemed to be a natural at breastfeeding, which was a huge weight off my mind. He was just so tiny and perfect. I couldn't believe my husband and I had made him and that he was ours to take home.
And then it was time to take him home and like every first-time-parent, I freaked out a little, okay a lot, about everything. I rode in the backseat because I just couldn't believe that his tiny little head would be okay in that huge carseat. I was very worried that something would come up as soon as we got home that would throw us for a loop and we wouldn't know how to deal. Yet now, here he is, almost two, and we seem to have gotten along just fine.
My pregnancy with Zim was pretty easy. Other than out of this world heartburn that made it nearly impossible for me to enjoy all my favorite foods (chocolate, tomatoes, chocolate, acidic fruits, chocolate) I didn't have much to complain about, but I still was pretty whiny about being pregnant and, by the end, wanted it to be over yesterday. Seriously, if you're on the fence about having kids, don't. It's a lot of work and only worth it if you're excited about being a parent, in which case, all the crappy stuff is totally made up for by the awesomeness of kids, but there's a lot of crappy stuff.
When I arrived at my 40-week appointment, I was greeted with surprising news. They were moving my due date back 2 weeks. I'd measured about that small all along and since their practice was to induce at 40 weeks, they wanted to make sure I was really 40 weeks. Since I'd already had my last day at work, this meant 2 weeks of sitting at home waiting for a baby who still wasn't ready to come.
 |
| Me, 40 weeks pregnant and ready to be done |
At my real 40 week appointment I had to do all manner of testing to make sure there wasn't an excuse to rip this baby out of me immediately. Apparently doctors in my practice were very eager to have babies early or on time. Since I'd had such a quiet pregnancy I hadn't really asked many questions along the way, but this was very different from what we'd learned was standard practice at my childbirth class offered by the hospital we were delivering at, where they said "Babies come when they're ready." I knew all of my mom's kids were at least 1 week late, so I was surprised to learn that my OB thought passing an arbitrary date on the calendar was reason enough to induce labor. But since my child proved to be following in my footsteps everything came back normal and since it was a Friday, they decided to wait until the following week to schedule my induction.
I went in for my check up Tuesday morning, still not dilated, still not having much in the way of contractions (they registered on the monitors, but I barely felt them), so I had one of the most painful procedures ever done, and the doctor dilated me manually to the width of a finger tip in the hopes that that would get my labor started before I showed up at the hospital that evening for my induction.
It didn't.
My husband, my mother, and I arrived at the hospital that evening to check in for my induction. After taking my vitals and getting all the paperwork out of the way, I got to have a lovely cardboard tampon of cervidil inserted into my vagina and lay in bed all night to see if it softened my cervix any.
It didn't.
Then throughout the next day I got to get increasingly higher doses of pitocin introduced to my IV to see if that would start regular contractions that started dilation.
It didn't.
It did however start super painful contractions that made me lose control of my bladder and required some heavy duty pain killers to knock me out until the medication started to leave my system.
At this point I should mention my mom and husband had stayed with me the whole time despite there being only one semi-comfortable piece of furniture in the room that my mom refused to take a turn on, so by this time she was getting pretty loopy from sleep deprivation. Luckily my best friend offered to stop by after work to give my mom an excuse to go back to our house and catch a nap before the action started.
My friend also brought cards and so we played Phase 10 and watched the Cubs lose while my cervix continued refusing to dilate. Unfortunately our card playing got cut short when my best friend started having blood sugar issues and had to raid the vending machines to keep from passing out. So basically, I was bored out of my skull, my husband was exhausted, and my best friend was unexpectedly getting ill. Are we having fun yet?
Also I forgot to mention that the nurse who was on my shift that night was the only labor and delivery nurse I've ever met who didn't exude an aura of calm and caring competence. She was super flighty and kept saying things out loud that I'm sure they teach you in nursing school are the things you shouldn't be telling your patients. She seemed more nervous about this whole thing than I was.
Then the doctor was going to break my water to see if that would start labor, only we didn't get to see what effect that would have had because a few things went wrong all at once. Some blood came out with the waters, making them think my placenta had ruptured. It hadn't and it turned out to only be a little blood. But then the baby went into distress severe enough that a lot of people started moving very quickly and before I knew it I had been whisked into an operating room and was being prepped for surgery. This was truly terrifying, despite the anesthesiologist's best efforts to keep me calm as they prepped me for surgery (the nurse, of course, was no help here). I remember trying not to hyperventilate as they put the mask over my face.
And then I woke up in a dim room in excruciating pain. I didn't have my glasses, so it wasn't worth opening my eyes since I can literally see about 2 inches in front of my face without them. It hurt to breath. It hurt to do just about anything, and then the crazy nurse told me I had a son and he was perfectly healthy and the only problem had been the cord wrapped around his neck. I wanted to cry or say something, but it hurt too much to move, so as tears started rolling down my cheeks the nurse freaked out and ran to get my husband, who also can't deal with girls crying, so somehow I managed to croak out that they were happy tears and that I hurt and he got what was going on enough to know that I really just needed him to hold my hand.
Then I started shivering and my whole world became pain. I knew from the childbirth class that shivering after delivery was normal, but I didn't think I'd be doing it with a fresh wound in my belly. I discovered just how many muscles in my body are connected to my abs - all of them apparently.
Eventually I got into an actual room and because of the circus the floor had been that night, I got one of the super fancy rooms that you're supposed to pay extra for if you book it in advance, but they gave it to me because of the trauma I'd gone through. Unfortunately the reason I got a cool room was also the reason I didn't get proper pain medication right away and so they were still waiting on someone to get a morphine pump for me because they'd run out on their floor (I was the 4th unplanned C-section of the night).
They asked if I wanted to see my baby, and as much as I did, I couldn't even imagine sitting up, let alone seeing my son for the first time and dealing with the crying that was sure to bring on. Luckily, the teacher of my childbirth class had stopped by and when she saw how crazy things were, stayed with my family until they got everything sorted out. She made sure my husband and best friend (and eventually my mother, when she got back) got to see the baby in the nursery. She made sure they gave me the good room when they ran out of regular rooms. She made sure they got my morphine pump up and running and that I had a breast pump available in case they couldn't get my pain under control before I needed to start releasing some breast milk.
 |
| The first picture I saw of my son, screaming in the nursery, while I was in too much pain to move |
My son's first meal was formula, but by the next morning my pain was under control enough that I could sit up enough to breast feed, with a lot of assistance from the wonderful nurses on the floor (Seriously, the one I had the night I delivered my son was the only dud in the batch. Everyone else was fantastic!). And I actually saw him for a few minutes in the middle of the night when I woke up all panicky and couldn't get back to sleep because I just had to see him, even if I could barely sit up enough to hold him. Thank goodness my husband took a picture of that moment. It's one of my all-time favorites.
 |
| a few hours later, pain starting to get under control, I meet my son face-to-face |
The next day or two of my hospital stay is kind of a blur. I was in a lot of pain, but the nurses pushed me very hard to get up and go to the bathroom on my own, take a shower, and start walking around. They even made me do a couple laps around the ward pushing my son's bassinet. Mostly I remember staring at them in disbelief every time they gave me another seemingly impossible task to do.
Eventually, though, things settled into a rhythm and while I was still in a lot of pain, I was starting to get the hang of this mothering thing. I definitely recognized my son's cries whenever they brought him back from testing in the nursery. He seemed to be a natural at breastfeeding, which was a huge weight off my mind. He was just so tiny and perfect. I couldn't believe my husband and I had made him and that he was ours to take home.
And then it was time to take him home and like every first-time-parent, I freaked out a little, okay a lot, about everything. I rode in the backseat because I just couldn't believe that his tiny little head would be okay in that huge carseat. I was very worried that something would come up as soon as we got home that would throw us for a loop and we wouldn't know how to deal. Yet now, here he is, almost two, and we seem to have gotten along just fine.
 |
| on the way home from the hospital, even with rolled up blankets, we couldn't position his head right to keep it from flopping, so I rode in the back seat to keep his head from falling off, I guess |
Monday, January 20, 2014
The Magic Of Language
Until 18 months my toddler showed very little interest in speaking actual words. He babbled incessantly and occasionally said real words like "mama", "dada", "all done", and "uh-oh" but had very little interest in using them on a regular basis or to regularly mean the things they actually mean. He learned how to wave and would say "Aaaaaah" while doing it, not while getting ready to go or when first arriving somewhere, but seemingly at random. He'd babble "Mamamamamama" nonstop for half an hour, but when I offered to give him a hug or ask him what he needed, he looked at me confused, like he didn't connect the sounds he was making with my arrival next to him.
I worried that my son wasn't going to get how spoken language worked. Like many parents of this generation, I was worried that my generally very social little boy was showing signs of autism, since lack of verbal communication is one of the signs, but he still communicated with me often in many other ways. He loved to goof around playing peekaboo and would yell indeterminate syllables to get my attention when he wanted me to watch him launch himself from another piece of furniture he shouldn't have been climbing (at least his need for an audience means I'm usually there to catch or pull him down from dangerous heights). He craved eye contact and attention, he just couldn't express it verbally.
And sure enough, right after Christmas spoken language started to make sense for him. He started using "all done" to more consistently mean he was done with something and "uh oh" to let us know when he'd dropped something (whether on purpose or not). When I leave the room he now runs after me screaming "Ma!" If his dad picks him up when he doesn't want to be held he screams "Nah! Nah! Nah!" (his version of "no") in addition to his usual head shaking and flailing. We play a game where he points to the different parts of his body and he's now started trying to say the parts as we do it (the "n" sound of "nose" being by far his favorite). Occasionally I even get a "thank you" out of him. And of course there are other words that are starting to come up more and more frequently, but you get the idea.
I owe a lot of my being able to find the words to write about this to a book called How Babies Talk: The Magic and Mystery of Language in the First Three Years of Life by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek which is a really great overview of the research on the language abilities of babies and toddlers. Instead of selling a new fad of making your baby smarter, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek simply let us know what science has been able to tell us about the language abilities of young children at various stages.
Even from within the womb, babies are learning important language skills. Does that mean you should be reading to your pregnant belly in a foreign language to give your child a leg up? Not necessarily. The authors do parents the wonderful service of explaining just how challenging understanding the concept of language and then going out and acquiring the skills to speak a language are and how the small, seemingly inconsequential milestones that our babies go through are really huge breakthroughs that our adult minds would struggle with, if they'd be able to achieve them at all.
They also show how many of the skills babies need to learn are hardwired into the parent-child relationship. It's nearly impossible to not make eye contact with a baby, and that's perfect, because babies are also hard-wired to seek out faces and making eye contact is the first way they learn to communicate.
While I picked this book up to ease my fears about my toddler's language abilities I also found it fascinating to learn the ways that the baby I'm currently pregnant with is learning to recognize my voice so that when it's born he or she will already know to find me by my voice.
Mostly I loved how this book reassured me that most of the instincts that came to me naturally, narrating my actions out loud to my child, talking more slowly and clearly to him so he could have a better chance to understand, going out of my way to make eye contact when I wanted to talk with him, are the best things I could be doing to help him develop language skills, and that while some toddlers start picking up spoken language as soon as they master walking, others take a little longer and both are perfectly normal. They also reassured me that while spoken language is the big goal for a toddler's communication skills, there are many other forms of communication that are important developmental milestones along the way (pointing being an especially big one) that are equally big achievements to first words and sentences.
I worried that my son wasn't going to get how spoken language worked. Like many parents of this generation, I was worried that my generally very social little boy was showing signs of autism, since lack of verbal communication is one of the signs, but he still communicated with me often in many other ways. He loved to goof around playing peekaboo and would yell indeterminate syllables to get my attention when he wanted me to watch him launch himself from another piece of furniture he shouldn't have been climbing (at least his need for an audience means I'm usually there to catch or pull him down from dangerous heights). He craved eye contact and attention, he just couldn't express it verbally.
And sure enough, right after Christmas spoken language started to make sense for him. He started using "all done" to more consistently mean he was done with something and "uh oh" to let us know when he'd dropped something (whether on purpose or not). When I leave the room he now runs after me screaming "Ma!" If his dad picks him up when he doesn't want to be held he screams "Nah! Nah! Nah!" (his version of "no") in addition to his usual head shaking and flailing. We play a game where he points to the different parts of his body and he's now started trying to say the parts as we do it (the "n" sound of "nose" being by far his favorite). Occasionally I even get a "thank you" out of him. And of course there are other words that are starting to come up more and more frequently, but you get the idea.
I owe a lot of my being able to find the words to write about this to a book called How Babies Talk: The Magic and Mystery of Language in the First Three Years of Life by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek which is a really great overview of the research on the language abilities of babies and toddlers. Instead of selling a new fad of making your baby smarter, Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek simply let us know what science has been able to tell us about the language abilities of young children at various stages.
Even from within the womb, babies are learning important language skills. Does that mean you should be reading to your pregnant belly in a foreign language to give your child a leg up? Not necessarily. The authors do parents the wonderful service of explaining just how challenging understanding the concept of language and then going out and acquiring the skills to speak a language are and how the small, seemingly inconsequential milestones that our babies go through are really huge breakthroughs that our adult minds would struggle with, if they'd be able to achieve them at all.
They also show how many of the skills babies need to learn are hardwired into the parent-child relationship. It's nearly impossible to not make eye contact with a baby, and that's perfect, because babies are also hard-wired to seek out faces and making eye contact is the first way they learn to communicate.
While I picked this book up to ease my fears about my toddler's language abilities I also found it fascinating to learn the ways that the baby I'm currently pregnant with is learning to recognize my voice so that when it's born he or she will already know to find me by my voice.
Mostly I loved how this book reassured me that most of the instincts that came to me naturally, narrating my actions out loud to my child, talking more slowly and clearly to him so he could have a better chance to understand, going out of my way to make eye contact when I wanted to talk with him, are the best things I could be doing to help him develop language skills, and that while some toddlers start picking up spoken language as soon as they master walking, others take a little longer and both are perfectly normal. They also reassured me that while spoken language is the big goal for a toddler's communication skills, there are many other forms of communication that are important developmental milestones along the way (pointing being an especially big one) that are equally big achievements to first words and sentences.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Review: Expecting Better by Emily Oster
The best pregnancy book I have ever read hands down. Oster started writing her book when she came to the realization that:
"Pregnancy seemed to be a world of arbitrary rules. It was as if when we were shopping for houses, our realtor announced that people without kids do not like backyards, and therefore she would not be showing us any houses with backyards. Worse, it was as if when we told her that we actually do like backyards she said, 'No, you don't, this is the rule.'"
This was very similar to my experience during my first pregnancy. I tried to engage my OB office in intelligent discussion about the pros and cons of aspects of my care and they just wanted to lay down rules. Finally I stopped sharing with them any sign that I was an intelligent person who sometimes had questions about my care. For most of my pregnancy this was fine because it was pretty simple and complication free and I don't live a wild and crazy lifestyle that would be harmful to a developing fetus.
As I approached and passed my due date and my child still was not ready to come out though, this narrow-minded view of the "right" way to do pregnancy, labor, and delivery, started to cause problems. The rest of my story is fodder for another blog post, but for now let's leave it at the fact that I wish I had been more well-informed about the risks and benefits of induction when a child is otherwise happy and healthy in the womb.
With a doctorate in economics, Oster is not a medical professional, but is used to evaluating evidence in order to make complex decisions. In this case she evaluates the evidence surrounding common pregnancy advice given by obstetricians. As someone in an also heavily researched based profession (librarianship) I appreciated her focus on facts. A little surprisingly she finds that a lot of common pregnancy advice is not supported by the evidence.
The biggest bombshell is that the total ban on drinking during pregnancy is based mainly on an assumption that Americans in general can't be expected to drink moderately. I completely agree when she responds, "I'm not crazy about the implication that pregnant women are incapable of deciding for themselves - that you have to manipulate our beliefs so we do the right thing. That feels, again, like pregnant women are not given any more credit than children would be in making important decisions."
Looking at studies of women in countries where pregnant drinking is perfectly acceptable (most of the developed world aside from the U.S.), researchers generally discovered that as long as women weren't binge drinkers or heavy drinkers their babies were at no greater risks for birth defects or lower IQ scores. Some studies even showed slight (although statistically insignificant) improvements for women who drank moderately during their pregnancy, especially if, after the first trimester, they drank about the same as they did before getting pregnant.
Unfortunately for me, I had such terrible heartburn during my first pregnancy that even after the nausea passed, I still didn't feel like drinking, so depending on if the heartburn repeats itself, I don't know if this revelation will change my behavior much the second time around. Still, knowing that I have the option to savor the occasional rum and coke guilt free during future pregnancies does make me feel a little better.
She covers less controversial topics as well, from best ways to ensure quick conception (there aren't any aside from the obvious "have unprotected sex repeatedly") to how common morning sickness is (very) and the best ways to treat it (Unisom and Vitamin B6) to decisions about pain relief in labor and the safety of various kinds of labor (it turns out living in the developed world, we're pretty safe, no matter how you end up delivering your baby).
In general I love her fight against the all too common attitude in the pregnancy establishment that expectant mothers should be coddled like children and simply told what to do while they're pregnant because they've got enough to worry about. Unfortunately, needless rules cause a lot of unnecessary worry. I found out relatively late that I was pregnant the first time and had eaten some sushi shortly before finding out and had no clue what risk I had put my baby at, only to realize that the main risk was that food poisoning can be especially unpleasant while pregnant. I hadn't developed food poisoning, so I was fine and should have had no reason to worry.
Also every woman and every pregnancy is different, so throwing out blanket rules that affect all of them the same seems stupid. There are certain drugs you'd rather not take during pregnancy, but if they treat a serious medical condition that could also affect the quality of your pregnancy, then it seems like an argument could be made for taking it, or not, depending on the variety of factors involved. And opening up this kind of dialogue between pregnant women and their healthcare providers is what I love so much. In general I'm in favor of more information (again, librarian here), so conversations with experts about the risks and benefits seem like a good thing.
It's funny that I like this book so much when my previous go-to pregnancy book was The Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy, which Oster criticizes a couple times. While her criticisms, to the best of my knowledge, are accurate, this, sadly, was the most evidence based pregnancy book I could find during my first pregnancy. If you are planning a traditional doctor-assisted hospital delivery it also gives you a pretty accurate picture of what to expect and what most doctors will do if something goes wrong. Still, as for diving into the evidence behind their recommendations, they are a far cry from Oster's analysis not only of the evidence, but why it may or may not be good evidence.
If you are pregnant, thinking about getting pregnant, or even working on your 2nd, 3rd, or subsequent pregnancies, this is a great book to explore the advice we give pregnant women and to give you the tools to make more informed decisions as a potential mother.
Check out an excerpt of the book at the Huffington Post to see if it might be something you're interested in.
Edit 10/3/17: I'm playing around with my new Amazon Affiliate status. So if you've read this review and want to buy Expecting Better would you mind clicking on this link below so that I get a (very) small kick back. Thanks.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Beginnings
This blog actually started two years ago as my modified NaNoWriMo project the year I found I was pregnant. I was so overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings about pregnancy and impending motherhood. I thought NaNo would be a good time to write a series of short essays about it, but as is typical for me and NaNo, I lost steam rather quickly. As my son has turned from an infant into a toddler, though, I found I still have tons of thoughts and feelings that seem like they'd be best expressed through an outlet like this.
At the same time, like so many other people I want to make fun of the whole phenomenon of "Mommy Blogs" and yet, I've really enjoyed reading some of them. Now that I'm a mom I don't seem to have time to keep up with anybody in particular, but I'll often binge on a good blog whenever I come across one. So I'm starting this blog, again on November 1 as a sort of public NaNo project (although I'm not publicizing it at all at this point).
To start I thought I'd share a piece I started two years ago, but have since reworked a little.
I’ve always been a cryer, but in the year before I found out I was pregnant, Kyle & I went through a lot of changes that were not positive and my crying became a problem, or more accurately, my crying became a symptom of a problem. I was depressed. When one little piece of bad news sent me into uncontrollable sobs for the rest of the day, I should have known something was wrong, but that’s the thing about depression. It’s so all-consuming and isolating that you don’t have the perspective to realize that what you’re feeling is not normal. Instead you’re so focused on yourself that you think that what’s wrong is that you’re weak, not that there’s a treatable chemical imbalance in your brain. You think that you've failed everyone and that maybe if you just tried harder then you’d be good enough and you’d stop feeling these overwhelmingly bad feelings that you’re just too embarrassed to tell anyone about.
Anyway, a few months before I became pregnant, I started being treated for depression. Luckily, once the medicine finally got into my system, this proved to be a very treatable problem. It didn't hurt that the changes coming at us started becoming positive.
But the thing that was weird through this recovery period was that I stopped crying completely. For the girl who was made fun of in grade school for crying all the time, this might have been a refreshing change, but at the same time it felt really unnatural. I cry about everything - good and bad - so crying about nothing had me worried that I wasn't feeling anything. When I mentioned this to my doctor, she said that meant it was time to decrease my dosage.
Shortly after this, I found out I was pregnant. I don't know if you know this, but pregnant women tend to be quite emotional. For someone like me who has some baggage about crying too much, this could have been really embarrassing, and later on in my pregnancy it was, but after weeks of numbness, preceded by months of depression I was ecstatic the first day I started sobbing uncontrollably on my way to work because I was so excited about the baby growing in my belly.
That didn't mean that I didn't worry in the back of mind for a long time every time I had another (often hormone-fueled) cry that I wouldn't be able to stop, that what started as a sappy emotional cry over the wonderfulness of the miracle of life would take a dark turn into a pity party about my utter worthlessness as a human being. But it didn't.
I was still definitely crazy, but a roller coastery hormone fueled ride through happy and sad cries instead of a one-way descent into depression. I definitely cried for sad reasons. Pregnancy came with a lot of frustrations - frustration at being too big for my pants, but not big enough for maternity pants; frustration at not knowing what my starving but finicky stomach would actually allow me to eat; frustration at just how exhausted I felt all the time, no matter how many naps I took.
And there were the new parent freak out cries, worrying that I wouldn't be able to provide for my baby, that I wouldn't be ready, that something would go wrong, but these were vague panicky fears and everytime I tried to name them, I'd calm down and see that I was just overwhelmed by the number of changes coming my way and that when I thought about the details I'd see that I was doing what I could to prepare and that for some of it I would just have to trust that things would turn out okay.
I marveled at how panic and frustration didn't turn into personal attacks. I dealt with trials as they came, and while hormones seemed to add an extra level of panic to things, once I took a deep breath and thought things through I was always able to calm down and work things out.
Which generally led to me crying tears of thankfulness that my brain was healed and working properly again. Mood swings are typical for a pregnant woman and I reveled in them because it meant that I was me again. I could feel things, both good and bad. I hadn't realized, until I lost the ability to feel anything, how much I missed the ability to feel everything. It made me almost not mind the random bursting into tears at inopportune moments.
When I had my next follow up with the doctor who had prescribed the antidepressant, she said that I could stop taking the pills altogether if I'd continued to feel alright. I happily reported to her that I was crying again, and now they were happy tears just as often as sad ones.
At the same time, like so many other people I want to make fun of the whole phenomenon of "Mommy Blogs" and yet, I've really enjoyed reading some of them. Now that I'm a mom I don't seem to have time to keep up with anybody in particular, but I'll often binge on a good blog whenever I come across one. So I'm starting this blog, again on November 1 as a sort of public NaNo project (although I'm not publicizing it at all at this point).
To start I thought I'd share a piece I started two years ago, but have since reworked a little.
I’ve always been a cryer, but in the year before I found out I was pregnant, Kyle & I went through a lot of changes that were not positive and my crying became a problem, or more accurately, my crying became a symptom of a problem. I was depressed. When one little piece of bad news sent me into uncontrollable sobs for the rest of the day, I should have known something was wrong, but that’s the thing about depression. It’s so all-consuming and isolating that you don’t have the perspective to realize that what you’re feeling is not normal. Instead you’re so focused on yourself that you think that what’s wrong is that you’re weak, not that there’s a treatable chemical imbalance in your brain. You think that you've failed everyone and that maybe if you just tried harder then you’d be good enough and you’d stop feeling these overwhelmingly bad feelings that you’re just too embarrassed to tell anyone about.
Anyway, a few months before I became pregnant, I started being treated for depression. Luckily, once the medicine finally got into my system, this proved to be a very treatable problem. It didn't hurt that the changes coming at us started becoming positive.
But the thing that was weird through this recovery period was that I stopped crying completely. For the girl who was made fun of in grade school for crying all the time, this might have been a refreshing change, but at the same time it felt really unnatural. I cry about everything - good and bad - so crying about nothing had me worried that I wasn't feeling anything. When I mentioned this to my doctor, she said that meant it was time to decrease my dosage.
Shortly after this, I found out I was pregnant. I don't know if you know this, but pregnant women tend to be quite emotional. For someone like me who has some baggage about crying too much, this could have been really embarrassing, and later on in my pregnancy it was, but after weeks of numbness, preceded by months of depression I was ecstatic the first day I started sobbing uncontrollably on my way to work because I was so excited about the baby growing in my belly.
That didn't mean that I didn't worry in the back of mind for a long time every time I had another (often hormone-fueled) cry that I wouldn't be able to stop, that what started as a sappy emotional cry over the wonderfulness of the miracle of life would take a dark turn into a pity party about my utter worthlessness as a human being. But it didn't.
I was still definitely crazy, but a roller coastery hormone fueled ride through happy and sad cries instead of a one-way descent into depression. I definitely cried for sad reasons. Pregnancy came with a lot of frustrations - frustration at being too big for my pants, but not big enough for maternity pants; frustration at not knowing what my starving but finicky stomach would actually allow me to eat; frustration at just how exhausted I felt all the time, no matter how many naps I took.
And there were the new parent freak out cries, worrying that I wouldn't be able to provide for my baby, that I wouldn't be ready, that something would go wrong, but these were vague panicky fears and everytime I tried to name them, I'd calm down and see that I was just overwhelmed by the number of changes coming my way and that when I thought about the details I'd see that I was doing what I could to prepare and that for some of it I would just have to trust that things would turn out okay.
I marveled at how panic and frustration didn't turn into personal attacks. I dealt with trials as they came, and while hormones seemed to add an extra level of panic to things, once I took a deep breath and thought things through I was always able to calm down and work things out.
Which generally led to me crying tears of thankfulness that my brain was healed and working properly again. Mood swings are typical for a pregnant woman and I reveled in them because it meant that I was me again. I could feel things, both good and bad. I hadn't realized, until I lost the ability to feel anything, how much I missed the ability to feel everything. It made me almost not mind the random bursting into tears at inopportune moments.
When I had my next follow up with the doctor who had prescribed the antidepressant, she said that I could stop taking the pills altogether if I'd continued to feel alright. I happily reported to her that I was crying again, and now they were happy tears just as often as sad ones.
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