first ultrasound

so yesterday we had our first prenatal check up and ultrasound. our midwife said i look and sound like i'm doing great, and the baby also seems to be doing very well. the ultrasound was amazing. it was a very old machine, which did not provide a very clear view, and was not able to zoom in, but what i was able to see was the most amazing thing i have ever laid eyes upon. i just stared at it with my mouth open, stupid smile on my face, one little tiny tear rolling down my cheek. i kept wanting to peak over at jason and see his reaction, but i literally could not take my eyes off the little guy even for a second. we saw this little white dot, his heart, beating like crazy. and then, every once in awhile, he would do this dance, that looked as though he was training to be a prize fighter, working on dodging blows with great speed and proficiency. it's funny, because just the other day i was telling jason how he now has knees and elbows, and is in there learning how to move them. when i told him that, i imitated a boxer, and jason just laughed. but it turns out i was right! he's gearing up to be a tough little cookie. :)
here is the picture we got. it's not very good, i know, but his head is on the left, and if you really look closely, you can see his leg all the way on the other end. i think i see an arm, too, and one of those dots in the middle might be his heart. anyway, we're going to her other office sometime next week where she has a better machine, and we'll hopefully have a much better picture to post after that.



she did try to find the heartbeat using her doppler, but was unable to because she kept getting a lot of feedback on it. she said that had never happened before. jason is convinced it's because our baby's superpowers were interfering with the transmission... whatever it was, she wasn't concerned, because it was definitely going strong on the screen.
as for me, it's been quite a rollercoaster ride lately. every time a new thing comes up, it's gone in a few days. like earlier this week, i was finding that if i went just a few hours without eating, my empty belly (holy crap! has my metabolism increased!) would start making me nauseous. that only lasted three days, thankfully. then yesterday, i just felt grumpy all morning for no reason. i just wanted to yell and scream, no matter what was going on. after that ultrasound, however, i felt very at peace and couldn't keep the smile off my face.
my belly is getting bigger. i put a rubber band through the loop of all my pants and shorts now. it makes them so much more comfortable! and i went and bought a couple new shirts, as well, because some of mine are so tight now that i feel a little self-conscious in them. found some on clearance for $5! :D
food has continued to be a pain in the butt. i decided today that the only way i'm going to be able to stop myself from wasting food (and not wasting a ton of money eating out) is by figuring out what i want for dinner when it's almost dinner time, and then going shopping for it right then. if i don't do it one meal at a time like that, i'll buy things that sound good at the time, but repulse me the next day when it's time to eat them. or just keep eating at restaurants, which is like a terrible trifecta--costly, time consuming, and not as healthy. too bad i can't just have a chipotle in my back yard. mmm...those crunchy tacos are ALWAYS good...
the gym has started to feel good again. i think going earlier in the day helps. i'm not as tired then, and always feel pretty good. went swimming last night and that was pretty awesome,
too.
for a couple of nights now i have been waking up in the middle of the night and had trouble falling back to sleep because i'll be having some anxiety about how much my belly can really stretch, and whether or not i can really push this baby out of me, and without any pain killers! i know it's normal to worry about all that, and it's more a general pondering at this point than an anxiety attack, but i do feel like i should probably get started on the hypnobirthing stuff. i'm excited to learn it, but nervous about whether or not i'm truly capable of having a birth that is virtually painless, instead of just barely manageable. i do believe that we're all capable of giving birth naturally, but i also believe a very large part of that is whether the individual person believes she is capable or not. so i guess i better start getting rid of this negativity, and quick.

homebirth

when i first started thinking about the financial side of having a baby, the most glaring question was, how much will the labor and delivery cost if we don't have insurance? i had heard numbers up to $10,000 from other people, and that, obviously, is money we don't exactly have saved up in a jar on top of the fridge. so, i thought i'd do a little research and see if homebirths are really as dangerous and crazy as everyone tries to make us believe. (many of you may already know my skepticism when it comes to common perceptions of things like this.)
one of the first things i came across was an article a friend showed me: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christiane-northrup/c-section-or-natural-birt_b_323422.html
one of the things i really liked about that article is that so many of the quotations and references were shown in complete context, instead of little snippets that could have been purposely slanted one way or the other. i also appreciated her touching on the way things are done in other developed countries. i found the following to be quite upsetting:
"It's well known that the maternal death rate in any given population is a very good indicator of the overall health status of that population, as is infant mortality. Unlike most other developed countries, pregnancy-related death statistics for the United States include only women who die within a six-week period after a pregnancy ends. Other developed countries include deaths that occur up to one year afterward..." (the next paragraph has the actual numbers.)
we tend to cover up or misrepresent scary information in this country, and that can be very dangerous.
then there are all the tests done on the baby once it is born. many of these practices are now outdated and unnecessary, yet are still being done. for instance, vitamin k shots used to be given to help the baby's blood clot, as forceps were commonly used and could sometimes break the baby's skin. forceps are rarely used now, but the shots are still given. then there's this article on the eye drops: http://www.unhinderedliving.com/eyeointment.html
this page goes on for days about all the ways your child can be harmed in the hospital, even while still in your stomach: http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/robert_mendelsohn3.html
there are no citations on this site, so i've done some research of my own. for example, the author talks about the newborns being bathed with hexachlorophene soap, which can be absorbed through the skin and cause neurological damage. i checked into this, and found that this soap has been replaced by triclosan. but when i researched that, i found mountains of evidence suggesting that many different groups are now questioning the harmful side effects of that agent, (go here for a list of products it's used in: http://www.drbenkim.com/articles/triclosan-products.htm looks like i'll be getting some new handsoap. (you can read about the dangers of triclosan at the top of that page, as well as here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/07/AR2010040704621.html and here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/the-dangers-of-triclosan_b_481323.html)
this study: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7505/1416 of over 7,000 women found that the rate of intervention in the homebirths assessed was much lower than for the same group of women giving birth in a hospital setting. the death rates were about the same in both settings. here are the findings of that study in a nutshell, with some info on the practice's reputation in other countries:

What is already known on this topic
Planned home births for low risk women in high resource countries where midwifery is well integrated into the healthcare system are associated with similar safety to low risk hospital birthsMidwives involved with home births are not well integrated into the healthcare system in the United StatesEvidence on safety of such home births is limited
What this study adds
Planned home births with certified professional midwives in the United States had similar rates of intrapartum and neonatal mortality to those of low risk hospital births
Medical intervention rates for planned home births were lower than for planned low risk hospital births

and this page shows the results of a very large number of studies: http://www.nashvillemidwife.com/safety.html

well, obviously i could go on for days about what i've found, so i'll leave it at this--overall, studies have shown that a homebirth with a professional midwife is at least as safe as one in a hospital, provided that the pregnancy is low-risk, and result in far fewer interventions.

my final take is this--when you give birth in a hospital, you are considered 2 things: a single number in a sea of other mothers, and a sick person whose delivery has the potential for disaster. in a hospital, giving birth is a business. you are one of many, so your delivery needs to be quick. and because of their (unfortunately understandable) fear of being sued, it also needs to be as controlled as possible. this means induction, unnecessary monitoring/exams, and c-sections (a whopping 33%!). (all of these things add up to more money for them, by the way, which should make anyone suspicious, in my opinion.) and most mothers don't put up a fight over any of this, because society tells us that giving birth is a terrifying, dangerous, messy, and inconvenient illness, so let's just schedule a time, and cut this baby out. then, once the baby is born, they will take it from you immediately to perform tests that you're expected to just go along with without explanation or evidence, at a time when the baby should still be getting nutrients through the umbilical cord, (which would still be pumping if it hadn't been cut already), bonding with it's mother while she still, for only a short time, has those labor-induced chemicals running through her body, and learning how to breastfeed at a time when it is most capable of doing so. forget that. i would much rather give birth to my child in the comfort of my own home, an environment whose germs he will already be immune to, in whichever position feels easiest and most comfortable for me, (which you can't do when you're hooked up to a dozen different machines in a hospital bed), at whatever pace feels right for me and my baby, with people around me who i know and love and trust. and when i hold my baby for the first time, i don't want any unnecessary distractions or interferences; i want that experience to be pure and unaltered. just me, jason, and this amazing new life.

first meeting with midwife

this morning we had our first meeting with the midwife i found online. i had already read a lot about her (treeoflifemidwifery.com), and just wanted to see if she was as awesome in person as she was in writing--and she totally was. :) jason and i both thought she seemed very kind, knowledgeable, trustworthy, intelligent, rational, and realistic, everything we were looking for. this first session we just talked and got to know each other, so i have no news about my little apparently-only-grain-of-rice sized baby. but i really felt comfortable with this lady, and felt like she seemed very capable, calm and honest. she said to make another appointment for about 10 weeks, because that's when she likes to do the first ultrasound. although i would have loved to have heard my little bean's hearbeat today, i still left feeling like i had found exactly what i was looking for.
i'll write more later about why i've decided on a homebirth. but right now, the GYM!

p.s.
jason just got an INCREDIBLE promotion today out of the blue. we're not allowed to discuss specific details, but we'll just say that it's one more amazing blessing to be thankful for.