Homebirth General Discussion #19

[Smoke Jaguar]

Awesome, Eenee!!! Happy days!!!
Lady Bug I hope you feel more secure in this pregnancy soon - as secure as anyone can feel when pg x
I need some Zen time tonight (but my parents are due, so not likely) after my DS has been testing me to my limits. It started in the morning and then at the pool again tonight. Ugh. I want my boy back, not this grot! I'm having big doubts about his role in the house while I'm birthing

[Bella29]

Hi all

SJ, man that all sounds really tough to be coping with. It is hard when you just want a willing partner to get things done with and you feel you have to drag someone kicking and screaming the whole way. Especially unhelpful when pregnant.. Oh and sympathies on the bub group ****ing off to fb. My last group did that. This time me and a few of the girls who have done this before, resisted when it was suggested. I think we will probably add each other as fb friends when we have had our babies, but I am glad for now we have stayed on bb land.

Ladybug, congrats on your pregnancy my dear. I hope that you start to feel more secure soon. I had really big doubts about this pregnancy at the start. I used to panic quite often feeling like as tho I might not get to hold this baby. I still panic a little when I hear dd talking about her brother. She told the whole class about him at prep this week. And her teachers tell me she talks about him all the time. Which is great and yet slightly scary for me in case anything happens.

Eenee, great to hear that there is no retained products. Now to just get your bleeding to settle down.

As for me, well I have officially hit the emotionally vulnerable stage of pregnancy. Usually for me that is somewhere in the early weeks of thirty, so right on schedule. I find myself really sensitive and crying for no or little reason. Today it was cos one of my best friends sisters responded to me setting up a fb group to support my bf, as she is expecting twins anytime now, negatively. She basically just said that is very nice that you wanna help, but people don't need expectations put on them on how much they should help, and we all have our own relationships with her, and anyway she is super organised and I'm sure she will be fine. Which makes me worry that I am being intrusive and or making a pain of myself. I haven't posted anything on the group at all t suggest what we should do for my bestie other than just that it is a place to organise meals and support like vacuuming the floors or doing a load of washing etc. anyway. It made me cry to read the response and made me want to back away feeling a bit rejected.... Gah... Oh the joy of over sensitive feelings. I honestly don't have a tough skin. Big softie. I often think I am an introvert because I find the work of trying to protect myself really exhausting. Right now I am even more sensitive than normal and I just find people so confusing.... Thanks for the chance to vent girls..

[Smoke Jaguar]

Bella, it sounds like her sister doesn't want to be upstaged OR feel like doing much for her sister! I'm sorry you copped that. Just do what you can and see if you can get some other friends on board and bypass the sister? I hear you on the early 30s! That's when I got teary.
Mixed up with DPs behaviour is the attitude that birth is ordinary. I think he's getting mixed up with 'normal' and throwing 'ordinary' in so that he doesn't have to fuss over me...he's done that twice before. I watched a bit of the DVD and his face does not reflect 'ordinary' right after birth, but he reverts to it easily enough :/
My parents didn't stay tonight! Small mercies! They had someone call to arrange to stay with them so they just dropped in for enough time to work the kids up, put them to bed a bit later than I wanted and then go back home! I sound ungrateful, but late pregnancy is not a time I want them around for longer than necessary, particularly my mum.
Anyway, it's more than bedtime
Have a great weekend, all!!

[Smoke Jaguar]

Sewing machine fail - the foot has gone missing in the move, so I had to craft glue the flags onto the tape, but it all looks good
I also got the kids doing birth art with the left over flags today! It got them away from TV and thinking about how this baby will fit into their lives - the cutest things came out, and they reckon they'll do more tomorrow.
I've packed a transfer bag that really just contains a couple of changes of clothes, figuring that DP can shuttle for anything else I might need...a token effort on my part!
DP being a lot less obtuse this weekend...not sure what brought that on, but anyway, I hope it lasts.
Just waiting for this baby to go quiet so that I can get excited about things starting, but so far there's loads of movement and trying to bust out of my ribcage. Ho hum.

[Cassius2]

SJ...my second child never stopped disco dancing even on her way down the birth canal...weirdest feeling ever hahahaha

Bella: just sounds like she felt her toes were stepped on IYKWIM. I reckon right now should all be about protecting yourself and nourishing your emotional health....time to get selfish and demand the love! shut out the negativity and create a baby/birth bubble!

[Sterla]

Hi everyone! Before now, I have kind of just been lingering... but I am 20 weeks today, so this whole pregnancy/home birth thing is starting to get a bit more real!

I will see my midwife next week, and I guess we might start discussing details for a home birth then. In the mean time, I guess I just wanted to get a general idea of the sorts of things I need to organise. My midwife has a birth pool I can hire, but that's all I know.

I will aim to try and keep up with this thread more from now on!

[Smoke Jaguar]

Exciting, Sterla!! You're half way cooked! The Midwives Naturally website has documents you can download for things to prepare - things like sieve, hand held mirror, watercolour paper for the placenta etc. You can google for aromatherapy recipes to make up oil blends and products to heal your birthing bits afterwards (I've got a perineum massage oil and a spray ready, as well as pads in the freezer with a healing blend sprayed on them) - stuff you can start making at about 35 weeks in between furniture rearranging! Think about birthing support, for your other children, too.
Cassius - I know my DD never stopped, and actually annoyed the crap out of me while her head was out and she kicked inside me for laughs with her angel face pointing up in the water after her quick labour. I'm not sure DS ever stopped, moving before labour, either (he shot out, though, he was in a hurry!). I was hoping this one would be more textbook...though I'm not sure why the labour goddesses would all of a sudden decide I was deserving of textbook at this stage, after spending more than half this pg on crutches
I'm getting a real hankering to be back in the saddle, so I wonder if that means anything for this week? Come on, baby, I wanna get back on my horse.
I forgot - after our photo session the other day, the photographer got excited about my homebirth revelation and asked if we wanted a birth photographer. I said I'd already asked DP and run her fees past him and we decided we couldn't afford it...and then she said she does payment plans...DP still wants to hold onto that money, but part of him seems to want to do it. It's our last one (if we can help it!) and we know how much our kids love seeing pics and the video of DD being born (not that we had one, but I am pretty sure it gets more viewing than if we'd had a wedding video!!). Soooooooo...it might still happen...

[Smoke Jaguar]

How many of those cotton umbilical ties does one typically need? I've made 5...might make extra, even if the kids get to wear them afterwards

[HotI]

How many of those cotton umbilical ties does one typically need? I've made 5...might make extra, even if the kids get to wear them afterwards

generally only one maybe two if you want to tie placenta side as well before cutting.

I did cord burning this time, so no tie required. I had one packed, just in case I changed my mind about the burning or we had to transfer etc.

[Smoke Jaguar]

Oooh, good idea to pack one in my token transfer bag!!
ok, so I ended up with 8...maybe one for everyone in the birth team Who knew I could feel so crafty?? I'm even contemplating finding my drawing pencils and sketching a thingy onto a canvas square I have here, waiting to be painted up into something. I painted a dragon for DD's anticipated arrival. I have nappies to fold, too, so I know which one I'd rather be doing!
I've put the kids' birth art onto tape so they'll be ready to hang tomorrow. They'll be so pleased. They're both giving my belly hugs goodnight telling me and the baby to have sweet dreams.
Nothing left for it but to keep nesting - bookcase was collected today

[meow]

I LOVED my "transfer" bag last time. This time when I pack it I'll call it my "early days" bag and relish it. It was so great to have all my nourishing things and the little newborn baby things all together in one place. We ended up putting the bag next to the bed and if I needed anything I could grab it easily or else pretty much anything I wanted to ask for I could just say "it's in the bag". Made life so easy.

[Smoke Jaguar]

I have my transfer bag stashed in the buggy and my oils, sprays, umbilical ties are in a basket that came with a raffle win. I have an auto tray set up in the loungeroom next to a recliner chair and the basket is there. The tray has heat packs and a baby chamber pot on the bottom and will have a jug and cup on it (and there's a tray ready to load nuts and Skittles, my preferred labour 'food', onto). A friend will bring around another change table soon to keep at that end of the house (because I'll be doing elimination communication as soon as I can I'll only really need tops for the baby and back up nappies). The auto tray moves around the house with me. It was fab in our teeny house when DD was born and will be even better in this longer house!
DD has just been watching her birth DVD and is feeling very inspired
All night I slept lightly, and kept dreaming that I was in early labour.

[HotI]

i did similar this time Meow, and it was awesome! Last time, i had things on a change table that dh was meant to move to the birth area, but he didn't so had to keep going back to it and not finding things. Having everything together in a bag was so easy, had a bag inside with all new baby stuff, nickers and pads and clothes for first few days for me, arnica etc... I had it in the lounge for a few weeks, but i could move it around myself.

I had quite concentrated? prelabour for coupe of days before birth. At the time, it was frustrating, cos i kept wanting it to kick off and was trying to work out why it wouldn't. Looking back that it was quite good, as i was expecting labour to start i got quite a few rests where i lay down and sometimes dozed. DH took kids to park couple of times so house was quiet. i don't often get a chance to nap so it was a lovely way to prepare for birth. on sunday, i decided i was over waiting for it to happen and the 4 of us went out to a local market and walked around. the kid s played on a jumping castle slide and then we got some chips and went to the local park for lunch and play. we saw some friends and then headed home.

[Tegam]

I'm lucky that our house is large so we actually use the master bedroom as a spare (it's way up the other end and I don't like to be away from the kids at night) so when Dd3 was born I had my own suite, everything I needed and no other kids to interrupt me at night, so I got all the precious sleep I needed. It also meant and means that this time that I can set the space up with everything I need and not have to move it after the birth. The room is also big enough for a birth pool so I can be super contained so exciting to talk about it.

[meow]

Sounds wonderful Tegam!

We currently live in a small 3 bedroom house and I'm not sure where I would the birth pool as the rooms aren't that big. But when we move we'll likely move into something even smaller so who knows where it'll all go down! I keep reminding myself of all those Dutch women who home birth in small apartments

[Tegam]

On the toilet meow. Nothing to clean up and a very nice neat compact space

[Special]

My 3rd was born in the shower. It was great. I went straight from the shower to my bed.

[Tegam]

My hair is ALL falling out. Like a serious amount every second day when I wash my hair. It's not funny and today I put my hair in a plait and its half the thickness it was a few weeks ago. DH even said something. Will I end up bald??? HELP