Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Love my midwife :)
Other than the driving to her house, which you have to go down some po-dunk roads in Hardin County, my midwife is great!!! I just had an appt. last night urine and sugar was great. My Hemoglobin was 14!!! I hope it stays up that high. Heartbeat was 146, she said "sounds like another girl to me," so Jason is pretty bummed about that, he is really hoping for a son. Other than that, we just talked about births and my hopes for this birth and things that scare me, etc. Those are the kinds of things that are wayyy better than seeing a physician, well, because other than that it sounds like a doctor visit, right? But according to ACOG I'm not even getting any "prenatal care." This is me rolling my eyes at you ACOG.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Yup, we are...
Pregnant, actually about 14 weeks, due in May and planning a homebirth. I met with a direct entry midwife about a month ago. I really like her and because she is delivering a majority of Amish, she has had experience with breech and actually has to use neonatal resuscitation. Not that I'm planning on my baby being resuscitated, but you get my drift. I'm finding the MDC forums very helpful in planning, and just hearing other stories of homebirthers is a little refreshing. Mom and Dad are being very supportive, surprising. My MIL has been great at getting things logistically, because she is "in the loop" of the homebirthers from the 80's. Allyson is not impressed, I suppose that will come.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Erin tagged me, sneaky butt!
10 things that make me happy
1) Our awesome God, who makes all things possible.
2)My daughter, she makes me smile and laugh every day and I thank God for her every day.
3) My husband, who without him, I don't know who or what I'd be.
4) My nephew, he's hilarious and such a boy
5) My family
6) Myspace, lol
7) My friends, that I didn't have in high school
8) My online friends
9) Chocolate :) Especially in brownie form
10) Having a clean house that smells good :) It practically never happens, so I think that's why it makes me so happy.
I'm tagging- Natosha, Syd, and Holly!!!
1) Our awesome God, who makes all things possible.
2)My daughter, she makes me smile and laugh every day and I thank God for her every day.
3) My husband, who without him, I don't know who or what I'd be.
4) My nephew, he's hilarious and such a boy
5) My family
6) Myspace, lol
7) My friends, that I didn't have in high school
8) My online friends
9) Chocolate :) Especially in brownie form
10) Having a clean house that smells good :) It practically never happens, so I think that's why it makes me so happy.
I'm tagging- Natosha, Syd, and Holly!!!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Man it's busy!
Just trying to tread water over here. We've been super busy with work and trying to keep up with things at home. The garden is a little overwhelming! Allyson had her 18 month visit today, no shots yet. We have to go to the health department for that and they only do them on Tuesdays, so she may never get them if I keep working every Tuesday. She's right on track developmentally. She's 90th percentile for weight and 80th percentile for height. That's about all for today.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Today, I'm getting some stuff done!
I got sent home from work early. They didn't have enough work for me, which I'm so sad about. Anyways, I left Ally at the babysitters and after I post this I'm going to go and do some stuff in the yard and clean the house up some. I swear.... Other than that just trying to not get called back in to work. I started reading 48 days to the work you love by Dan Miller I hope it works!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Annoyed *rolls eyes*
This was in the LA times, it's a really great article supporting homebirth.
Big Medicine's blowback on home births Why do U.S. doctors strong-arm women into our standard maternity care system? By Jennifer Block July 9, 2008
You'd think the healthcare establishment would have bigger fish to fry than Ricki Lake. (The 47 million uninsured, maybe?) But Lake's recent documentary, "The Business of Being Born," which includes footage of her own delivery of her second child at home, was on the agenda at the American Medical Assn.'s annual meeting in mid-June. Lake was personally name-checked in a "Resolution on Home Deliveries" introduced by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: "Whereas, there has been much attention in the media by celebrities having home deliveries, with recent 'Today Show' headings such as 'Ricki Lake takes on baby birthing industry.' " The AMA ultimately passed the resolution without the Lake citation, but not before the Hollywood media got wind of it and, overnight, home birth was thrust into the mainstream light. It's about time. Last year I flew to Britain to be with a good friend for the birth of her first child. She's American but married into Britain's National Health Service, lucky duck. The differences in the prenatal care she got there were striking. First and foremost, she never saw a doctor. As a healthy woman with a normal pregnancy, she saw midwives. And one of their first questions to her was, "So, would you like to give birth in the hospital maternity ward or at home?" Planning a home birth with a midwife may sound old-fashioned -- maybe you think it sounds crazy -- but a solid body of research shows that for healthy women who seek a normal, nonsurgical birth, there are several benefits. At home, a woman can get one-on-one care and monitoring from a midwife trained to support the normal labor process. The mother-to-be is free to move about, eat and drink, sit in a birth tub -- Britain's national health guidelines call water the safest, most effective form of pain relief. A woman will be helped to give birth in positions that are effective and protective: sitting, squatting, on hands and knees, even standing. The physiological birth process is automatic: hormones fire, the cervix gradually opens, the uterus contracts, the baby descends, muscles engage. An optimal birth, one in which mother and child emerge as healthy as can be, is one that begins spontaneously, progresses on its own and concludes with the least amount of intervention necessary. But hospital maternity care in the U.S. is typically not supportive of this process. More than half of women are induced into labor, or it is sped up with artificial hormones; the vast majority of women labor and push in the desultory flat-on-the-back or leaning-back position; and (perhaps not surprisingly) nearly one-third of women end up giving birth through major surgery, the caesarean section. This has led to an epidemic of pre-term births in the United States. A 2006 survey showed that the majority of babies are now born before the spontaneous onset of labor, which leaves them more prone to breathing and feeding difficulties. Caesareans are also contributing to a rising maternal death rate, announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year. Which is why some women, such as those in the film Lake produced, choose to give birth somewhere other than a hospital. Their choice is backed by sound science. Studies of "low-risk" women in North America planning out-of-hospital births with midwives have found that 95% give birth vaginally with hardly any medical intervention. The largest and most rigorous study to date, published in the British Medical Journal, found that in North America, babies were born at home just as safely as in the hospital. Organized medicine can't believe this. Dismissing the research evidence, the AMA resolution states that "the safest setting for labor, delivery and the immediate postpartum period is in the hospital" or an accredited birth center. In its own statement earlier this year, the American College of Ob/Gyns went even further, implying that women who choose home birth are selfish and irresponsible: "choosing to deliver a baby at home ... is to place the process of giving birth over the goal of having a healthy baby." Compare that to this information in Britain's NHS-issued handout my friend was given at her first prenatal appointment: "There is no evidence to support the common assertion that home birth is a less safe option for women experiencing uncomplicated pregnancies." In a joint statement last year, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Royal College of Midwives said, "There is no reason why home birth should not be offered to women at low risk of complications, and it may confer considerable benefits for them and their families." The AMA's statement calls for legislation that could be used against women who choose home birth, possibly resulting in criminal child-abuse or neglect charges. The group says this is about safety, but with no credible research to back up its claim, this argument falls flat. Women are simply caught in a turf war over the maternity market, and it would appear that the physicians' groups are perfectly willing to trample the modern medical ethic of patient autonomy -- grounded in our legal rights to self-determination, to liberty and to privacy -- in their grab for control. If these groups were truly making maternal and child health a priority, they'd be reforming standard maternity care, not strong-arming women into it. Jennifer Block is the author of "Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care."
Big Medicine's blowback on home births Why do U.S. doctors strong-arm women into our standard maternity care system? By Jennifer Block July 9, 2008
You'd think the healthcare establishment would have bigger fish to fry than Ricki Lake. (The 47 million uninsured, maybe?) But Lake's recent documentary, "The Business of Being Born," which includes footage of her own delivery of her second child at home, was on the agenda at the American Medical Assn.'s annual meeting in mid-June. Lake was personally name-checked in a "Resolution on Home Deliveries" introduced by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: "Whereas, there has been much attention in the media by celebrities having home deliveries, with recent 'Today Show' headings such as 'Ricki Lake takes on baby birthing industry.' " The AMA ultimately passed the resolution without the Lake citation, but not before the Hollywood media got wind of it and, overnight, home birth was thrust into the mainstream light. It's about time. Last year I flew to Britain to be with a good friend for the birth of her first child. She's American but married into Britain's National Health Service, lucky duck. The differences in the prenatal care she got there were striking. First and foremost, she never saw a doctor. As a healthy woman with a normal pregnancy, she saw midwives. And one of their first questions to her was, "So, would you like to give birth in the hospital maternity ward or at home?" Planning a home birth with a midwife may sound old-fashioned -- maybe you think it sounds crazy -- but a solid body of research shows that for healthy women who seek a normal, nonsurgical birth, there are several benefits. At home, a woman can get one-on-one care and monitoring from a midwife trained to support the normal labor process. The mother-to-be is free to move about, eat and drink, sit in a birth tub -- Britain's national health guidelines call water the safest, most effective form of pain relief. A woman will be helped to give birth in positions that are effective and protective: sitting, squatting, on hands and knees, even standing. The physiological birth process is automatic: hormones fire, the cervix gradually opens, the uterus contracts, the baby descends, muscles engage. An optimal birth, one in which mother and child emerge as healthy as can be, is one that begins spontaneously, progresses on its own and concludes with the least amount of intervention necessary. But hospital maternity care in the U.S. is typically not supportive of this process. More than half of women are induced into labor, or it is sped up with artificial hormones; the vast majority of women labor and push in the desultory flat-on-the-back or leaning-back position; and (perhaps not surprisingly) nearly one-third of women end up giving birth through major surgery, the caesarean section. This has led to an epidemic of pre-term births in the United States. A 2006 survey showed that the majority of babies are now born before the spontaneous onset of labor, which leaves them more prone to breathing and feeding difficulties. Caesareans are also contributing to a rising maternal death rate, announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year. Which is why some women, such as those in the film Lake produced, choose to give birth somewhere other than a hospital. Their choice is backed by sound science. Studies of "low-risk" women in North America planning out-of-hospital births with midwives have found that 95% give birth vaginally with hardly any medical intervention. The largest and most rigorous study to date, published in the British Medical Journal, found that in North America, babies were born at home just as safely as in the hospital. Organized medicine can't believe this. Dismissing the research evidence, the AMA resolution states that "the safest setting for labor, delivery and the immediate postpartum period is in the hospital" or an accredited birth center. In its own statement earlier this year, the American College of Ob/Gyns went even further, implying that women who choose home birth are selfish and irresponsible: "choosing to deliver a baby at home ... is to place the process of giving birth over the goal of having a healthy baby." Compare that to this information in Britain's NHS-issued handout my friend was given at her first prenatal appointment: "There is no evidence to support the common assertion that home birth is a less safe option for women experiencing uncomplicated pregnancies." In a joint statement last year, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Royal College of Midwives said, "There is no reason why home birth should not be offered to women at low risk of complications, and it may confer considerable benefits for them and their families." The AMA's statement calls for legislation that could be used against women who choose home birth, possibly resulting in criminal child-abuse or neglect charges. The group says this is about safety, but with no credible research to back up its claim, this argument falls flat. Women are simply caught in a turf war over the maternity market, and it would appear that the physicians' groups are perfectly willing to trample the modern medical ethic of patient autonomy -- grounded in our legal rights to self-determination, to liberty and to privacy -- in their grab for control. If these groups were truly making maternal and child health a priority, they'd be reforming standard maternity care, not strong-arming women into it. Jennifer Block is the author of "Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care."
Monday, July 14, 2008
Summer time
Now that it's summertime it's hard to get on the computer and screw off. We've been doing lots of things and Jason and I have been working a lot to try and pay off that stinkin' debt. Jason is trying to get me to come down and work at Grady, and it is tempting, what if I got a $5/hr pay raise to go there too? That'd be a very significant amount of money and we'd pay off this crap A LOT faster. But on the other hand, when you are a golden retriever like me, it's hard to change. *sigh* Who knows what the Lord has planned for me? I have been praying for patience and things like that. But, also, I feel like when I'm at work and have dying patients, that I don't say the right thing, or anything at all for that matter. And so, I've been praying that the Lord gives me the right words to say, and I think yesterday I handled a family very well, and thanked the Lord that He helped me.
Allyson is such a joy at this age! She can be cranky, but it's amazing how big she is growing and it seems that everyday she learns how to do or say something new. I love it! Also, she has been sleeping through the night which is a big relief. This week we don't have anything big planned, just enjoying the weather.
Allyson is such a joy at this age! She can be cranky, but it's amazing how big she is growing and it seems that everyday she learns how to do or say something new. I love it! Also, she has been sleeping through the night which is a big relief. This week we don't have anything big planned, just enjoying the weather.
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