Birth Plans and Postpartum Talk…

So I was reading this article/blog earlier today written by a lady who just had twins. She talks about how sometimes births don’t go as planned, which can sometimes be true. She then goes on to talk about how after her scheduled cesarean section she had postpartum hemorrhaging. Apparently she had never heard of postpartum hemorrhaging before it happened to her, and that in some cases it does not end as happily. She then says, and I quote “if it had been another era, or another part of the world, I might have been in very big trouble”. She then goes on to thank the team at the hospital and such.

I was actually a little upset with her blog to be honest. I’m not saying that it wasn’t a good blog, or a good topic for that matter. I think it’s very important that women educate themselves about birth and postpartum care, but she just left you hanging. No information, no direction…

We have to educate ourselves! When I was pregnant with my first I read everything I could, I talked to people, and I watched documentaries about pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. I know that we should trust in our doctors and in the healthcare professionals, but sometimes they do things that aren’t in our best interest.

Postpartum hemorrhaging is real, and it can be deadly. Just ask my doula, as she lost a Mother just about two months after I found out I was pregnant with my son. I don’t want to scare you, but I want you to be prepared…so here is a list of things I think are important.

1. Have a birth plan in place. Write it out and go over it with your significant other (SO), your doctor, and anyone else that will be in the delivery room with you. Be sure to have a copy in your hospital bag as well.
2. Have a mediator, or two, or three with you in the delivery room. These people should know your birth plan, and be there to help and try and follow said birth plan. This can include your SO, Mother, sister, best friend, or a doula. I had the same doula at both of my births, and I can not even begin to tell you how invaluable she was!
3. Please, please, please get a hep-lock, also called a saline lock. Even if you don’t plan on getting any fluids or drugs, this little wonder could be all the difference in saving your life. If a problem does arise they can administer drugs and fluids to you right away instead of waiting for them to get an IV going.
4. After delivery see if they can give you a little pitocin. Your probably asking me why…isn’t that for helping woman have contractions during labor. Well if pitocin is given after delivery it speeds up the natural contractions of your uterus, thus minimizing your risk of bleeding.
5. This is the one suggestion that is never fun to talk about, but you need to have a just in case plan in place. If your birth (or postpartum recovery) doesn’t go as planned, you need to have another plan in place. Who will stay with the baby, who will stay with you, how will the baby be cared for if you are being attended to? Maybe you want your SO to stay with you, and Mom to stay with the baby. If you know another Mom that is currently breastfeeding, maybe have their number as an emergency for helping to feed the baby. They could pump and bring milk for the baby, or if you all both okay with it you could have her wet nurse for you. I know these are things we never want to happen, but having a plan in place for just such an emergency is just so important.
6. When in doubt, ask! If you aren’t sure that something is right, or you aren’t sure what to do…ASK! Don’t be afraid to buzz the nurses, because they are there to help you. I had some problems after coming home with my son that caused me to have to call labor and delivery with a follow up question. I had large clots and weird bleeding that I wasn’t sure was normal.

Feel free to read the blog I was speaking about at the beginning of my post, if you would like  http://www.parents.com/blogs/everything-pregnancy/2015/04/08/everything-pregnancy/the-post-birth-complication-i-never-expected/?socsrc=pmmfb1504099

To all you future Dads….

Maybe this is your first baby…or your third, but all you Dads better read this!

Its not easy for us women…this whole baby thing! We have to carry and grow a little person inside us for 36-42 weeks. Sometimes it feels like there is an alien inside us taking over our bodies! We get kicked, punched, morning sickness, morning sickness that lasts all day, sleeplessness, feeling uncomfortable, bloating, and we can even occasionally have an accident.

Then the even more fun part comes…labor and delivery (and sometimes c-sections). We get to go through hours…and sometimes days of labor! The pain can be down right unbearable at times. All we want is for it to hurry up and be over! Then we get to push this wonderful little human out! It can all be rather exhausting!!!

After that is the recovery. Not only do we have this sweet, amazing little baby to take care of, but we also have ourselves to look after and help recover from the birth. There is pain, blood, sore nipples from breastfeeding, more sleeplessness, and dirty diapers.

And there you are Dad, holding your new little one for the first time! Ten tinny fingers…ten tinny toes!!! And you look at your amazing baby’s mom and you start to wonder what you can do to help. Here are some ideas:

• Make sure Mom has everything she needs to recover. This might mean running to the store to buy her some pads, but you will be a hero in her eyes.
• Make sure Mom takes it easy! She needs to rest to make sure she is recovering right, and this goes for both vaginal and c-sections! Help out around the house as much as possible, and it doesn’t hurt to have family come and help as well.
• Food! Help with the cooking, or see if family and friends can take turns dropping off easy to re-heat dishes. Mom’s will also snack a lot and need to drink lots of water, so keep a jug full of water for her and have health snacks within arms reach.
• This is an important time for Mom and baby to bond, but remember you are part of the family! Spend time together as a family starting now! You may feel left out at first, but there are a number of ways for you to include yourself. Snuggle up on the bed together and be a backrest for Mom while she feeds the baby, help change those dirty diapers, hold the baby while Mom goes and takes a shower…
• You might also want to consider getting Mom a push gift. That’s right…it’s an actual thing with an actual name…push gift. Even if she didn’t push the baby out, she still deserves something special! She carried and brought a baby into this world, so get her a little something to let her know how amazing she is. It could get a necklace or a ring…maybe something with the baby’s birthstone in it (I would suggest waiting till the baby is born. If the baby comes early or late it could be born in a different month then the due date month). It doesn’t have to be anything super fancy! If you get something in silver instead of gold it can be a lot cheaper. If you are a little more on the crafty side you could maybe make something like a photo collage or something cute for the baby’s room.

There might be some sleepless nights at first but those first words, those first steps, that first drawing make it more then worth it!!!

Time….Change?

Daylight Saving Time…lets just say I have no great love for all this spring forward, fall back stuff. I was born and raised in Arizona and we didn’t have to deal with this silliness! The falling back part isn’t so bad…get an extra hour, and it sure is easier to get the kids to bed later than earlier.

It’s bad enough that I have to adjust to the change, but now I have kids. And like I said, it’s not too hard to get them to stay up later when it’s time to fall back an hour. It’s the springing them forward an hour that’s difficult. Over the last few days I have been trying to get the kids to bed 5-10 minutes earlier then the previous night to help them adjust. It hasn’t exactly been working the greatest.

I keep trying to think of other ways…cold turkey maybe? Like boom it’s Sunday and we are on the new schedule?!? I’m just not sure this way would work. Maybe if my kids were older then I could see it possible working.

Or maybe they should just do away with daylight saving time, so we don’t have to deal with it. I would rather we stay the same time as we are during the summer, which also happens to be the same time as Arizona. I just hate that the sun sets at like 4:30 p.m. during the short days of winter. If it stayed the same time as during the summer then the sun would set at 5:30, which means we have a little more daylight to try and get things done after work hours. Makes more sense to me anyways.

If anyone has suggestions or ways they help their kids adjust to the time change I would love to hear from you!!!…

Help…a u-haul threw up all over my house!

No, I am not joking at all….it really did happen…my house is a disaster…

Lets go back about a week and a half ago, to when my husband flew down to Arizona. We’ve had a storage unit down there since 2010, and the price just keeps going up, and up, and up. The unit is climate controlled, so it costs an arm and a leg. So finally, we decided to do something about it. Husband went in and talked to personal property, and they said we could use our unused weight from our previous two moves to get some money to move our stuff up here.

So, we bought my husband a one way ticket. He flew down there, loaded up a u-haul, and drove for three days to get it all up here. Just shy of 9,000 lbs of goods, and my house is a disaster area! Garage is full, and we even had to rent a small storage unit near our home. The storage unit is smaller then the one we had in AZ (10×30 to a 10×10), but we are paying just under 1/4 of the price as our unit in AZ. Which is good for our budget!

You are probably wondering why we have s0 much stuff, and that’s a really good question. Before my husband joined the Navy we owned a 2,800 square foot home. We have a lot of antiques from my side of the family, as all my grandparents have passed and my parents are now retired and full time RVers. My husband also lost both his parents 8 months before he went off to boot camp (he was in the Navy’s delayed entry program for about 10 months). So now you can understand why we have so much stuff…

Now it is the slow task of going through the boxes and deciding what to keep, what to sell, and what to throw away. At first I was excited! All my beautiful antiques, my camping gear…and then the *bleep* ton of boxes! So now I am in the purge faze, and I just want to go through my whole house and get rid of everything I don’t use anymore or care for. I am hoping to have a big garage sell here in a few weekends, sell it all, make money, and have my one car garage back to park in…

Cuddling…101

So with Valentine’s Day coming up in just a few days I thought I would write about cuddling today…

A few weeks ago I read a fact that couples that cuddle can become addicted to each other, and can even go through withdrawal. I read this and immediately thought, “so that’s why I can’t sleep well when my husband has duty or is deployed”. It may seem like such a simple thing, but it has actually been scientifically proven to be true. Scientists discovered that our bodies release the hormone oxytocin when cuddling.

Oxytocin can help boost your immune system, help decrease your pain level, and lower stress. All this also means it lowers your blood pressure, and in affect also lowers your risk of heart disease. So pretty much is it a super drug right?

This naturally occurring drug doesn’t just happen between couples…Oxytocin is also very important to women during childbirth and breastfeeding. Another reason I feel that having the baby placed immediately on the mothers chest after birth is so important. So the skin to skin contact starts the bonding and oxytocin release.

So this Valentine’s Day spend extra time cuddling with the ones you love. For that matter, keep doing it day after day!!! It may be addicting, but now we know it’s a good drug to be addicted to…

Potty Training Update

I know, I know…its been a while since I last posted! I have been busy working on potty training my now three year old daughter. I feel like every moment is spent either training her, cooking, doing dishes, and feeding my 4 month old son. At times I feel really bad for my son because I feel like the potty training is eating up so much time, and I don’t get to spend much time with him.

The potty training isn’t going as good as I hoped. She is still having some accidents and the only time she does really good is when she goes bottomless, which isn’t always easy to do when there is an infant and a house to take care of. I have to block my daughter from going into other rooms so I can keep a better eye on her and make sure she doesn’t have an accident all over the floor.

Sometimes I feel frustrated because I see so many other kids that are already potty trained by 3, or sometimes even younger. I was fully potty trained at 3 years and 4 months old, and by fully potty trained I mean no more accidents. My daughter seems like such a bright and smart child, although she does have problems sitting still. But then I can’t help thinking to myself how young she is, and how can kids at such a young age understand their bodies and such.

I plan on posting more blogs this week then my usual 2 a week, as my husband is going to be gone for 4-5 nights this week. I’m even trying to think up some ideas related to Valentine’s Day. Have to see what I can come up with…

Am I going bald?

No seriously? Am I going bald? My hair is shedding at a very alarming rate and it’s EVERYWHERE! All over the shower, stuck in my brush, on the counter, on the floor, stuck in between my  toes…

Postpartum hair loss has struck! Booo!!! Hiss!!!

Although postpartum hair loss is normal, ain’t nobody got time for that! Haha! Anyways, I wanted to learn more about it, so I did a little research of the subject.

When pregnant your increased estrogen levels cause your hair to go into a dormant state. Another words, hair that would normally fall out, stays put. Add in your prenatal vitamins that you are taking, and your hair may be looking more fabulous then it ever has. (*bleep* that…my hair looked the exact same as it always has! I was apparently “blessed” with super fine hair…) After giving birth to your little bundle (or bundles) of joy, your estrogen levels start to decline, and you now lose all the hair that you should have lost since your hair went into its dormant state. This usually starts around 3 or 4 months postpartum and ends around 6 months postpartum.

Hopefully your hair loss isn’t noticeable, but if it is then you may want to try a few different tricks. Maybe get a new cut, use some different hair products, or part your hair a different way. And as always, if it’s really bad…and I mean really bad, go talk to your doctor.

So there you have it folks…blame the hormones!!!

My First Real Post…

The last few days I have been thinking (really hard) about what to write for my first blog. I have a number of ideas, and all of them written down in a little notebook. That’s right folks…I like to scribble little ideas down throughout the day on actual paper! Anyways…back to the subject…I figured I would write my first blog about my oldest, my daughter, my princess, as she is turning 3 later this week.

Three years old and all I can think is where did the last three years go? Okay, so I know where they went, but I am just so amazed at the little girl she has become! I was the youngest in my family, so I had absolutely no experience with babies when I had my daughter three years ago. I had her via an all natural drug free birth, which I will talk about more at another time. I have also breastfed both of my kids, which my mother didn’t do with me…so everything was new to me. Diapers, putting clothes on a baby, bathing them, and lets not forget about the laundry and stains!

How did I survive it all…patients! That’s really the only thing I can think of that helped me get through it all, and how I was able to breastfed for 12 1/2 months with her. I have to remind myself to stay patient more and more with her now as she gets older. I swear this girl has ants in her pants, because she just can’t sit still for more then a few moments. She is such a handful! We have been trying to get her to potty train, but we aren’t doing so well in that department. In the next week I am going to try some different tactics to see if I can finally get her trained.

I am constantly surprised by the things my daughter says and does. She has amazing manners, which I think is SO important for her to have! It’s not too often that I have to remind her to say please and thank you. She’s good about clearing the table of her plate and cup and putting them in the sink. She’s also good about washing her hands before and after eating. Some of the sweetest things she has said recently is, “I love you too” when I tell her I love her. The other day her baby brother had just woken up from a nap and she booked it up the stairs ahead of me to go see him. As I am walking into the room she’s already hanging over the crib railing, and I overhear her saying, “I love you baby brother”, which just melted my heart. Lord knows the last few months have been hard on everyone in our house with the new baby, so all these new interactions with her brother means a lot to me.

Happy Birthday Princess! Momma loves you!!!

Introduction

Welcome…to you…and to myself!?!

This is my very first blog, so let me tell you all a little about myself and this blog.

I am Sailor Wife and Momma, but you can call me Amy. I am in my 30s, I was born and raised in the desert southwest (also known as Arizona), currently live in the Pacific Northwest, have been married for 10 years, have two kids (oldest is a girl that is about to turn 3, and my youngest is a boy born this past September), I am currently a stay at home mom, my husband is currently serving in the United States Navy, we have three dogs, and a house.

I have been thinking about starting a blog for sometime now and I want this blog to be my creative outlet…a way for me to escape (and write) about my day and my life. To write about my adventures, my failures, motherhood, and being a wife. I also plan to talk about topics like breastfeeding and natural childbirth. I want this blog to be an adventure for my readers as well…I want to share with you…teach you…educate you even.

P.S. – I am married to a sailor, and I curse like one too! However, I plan to use *bleep* instead of actual curse words. I think this is beneficial to all parties. I get to curse, sort of, and you get to be creative at filling in the *bleep*s!