Today is the first day of my unpaid maternity leave. I am pretty sure I am not going back to my company because they do not offer part time or telecommuting work. I have been agonizing over this day for weeks because it is the first day of my career as a full time mother. I have the opportunity to possibly get a telecommuting job doing programming at home. I drive myself crazy because I have been dying to get a job where I can work from home so I can have my own money and own income. I have been going on and on about how I do not want to go back to penny pinching and having to bargain shop. Yet, now that getting a job where I can work for home is a real possibility, I am just as scared as if there were no opporunity at all. I am worried I will take the job and my life will fill up again and I will not make room for any genuine change in my life.

I am really struggling with whether or not I should work or if I should stay at home. Most women I have met who have given up their jobs to be stay at home moms really didn't make much money at all in their positions. While I don't make a fortune, my salary is pretty competitive for either a man or a woman especially for a job where travel isn't required. I work for a company that is growing and has a lot of money to throw around. The problem is that I never really enjoyed my job. I somehow fell into information systems with the rest of the job seekers in the early 1990's and I have stuck with it for the fear of not being self sufficient at the detriment of my own happiness. So, now I am in my mid 30's and I am thinking of quitting to be with my newly born daugher, Adrianna. Ignorantly, I did not realize how much work a new born requires and although my husband and I both agree this could be a great opportunity for me to find a new path/career, I am afraid that I wont have the time or energy and that I will wake up in my 50's wondering what I have done with my life. I can hardly believe I am in my 30's and that my need for security has gotten me so far off track from my dreams. I have a habit of only seeing the short term when it comes to my career...money. I worry because we need a new car, and furniture and we need to save for Adrianna's college education. I somehow cannot put the same faith in my ability to carve a new career for myself as I do in other areas of my life. For instance, most people told me I was crazy to do natural child birth. But somehow I knew it was right for me so I did the research and I prepared by taking classes and making sure I had the support I needed to successfully go through with it. And I would have had it any other way. I have also known my whole life that I didn't fit in corporate america, yet it is safe and it offers consistent income. I have been willing to trade off my happiness for security because I am afraid of failure. I need to change my life not only for myself but also for my daughter. I do not want her to have an unhappy unfulfilled mother as a role model.

June 12th 2006- I am starting this blog as a way for me to keep track of my daughter's growth and progress and to give me a creative outlet during the very hectic and busy time of early mothering. I am going to start with the facts. So, this first post might be a little dry but I want to document the little things that she might be interested in when she gets older. Adrianna was 6 weeks old yesterday. She was born on April 30th (Sunday) and she weighed 7lbs 10 oz and was 18 18 1/2" long. Adrianna was born at 10:16 pm. We did early discharge so we left the next evening at 10:16 pm after her pku test was given. We went to the pediatrician, Dr. McMillan the next day and she was down to 6 lbs 15 oz on the traditional scale. We came back to the pediatrician's office on friday for another weight check and she weighed 6 lbs 13 oz on the digital scale. When I prompted them to weigh her again on the traditional scale, she had not lost any weight at all. That is when the race began for Adrianna to gain weight. I don't know why but a lot of pediatricians believe that babies have to gain back their birth weight within 2 weeks of being born. As a result, they say you are supposed feed them every two hours even if it means waking them up to do so. There is debate about this by some people. As my mother says, babies don't starve themselves and they should be fed when they cue for food (most babies cue for the breast by sticking their hands in their mouths). We scheduled an appointment for the next week to weigh her again. At this appointment she gained 6 ounces which supposedly is in the acceptable range (they are looking for 5 -7 ounces per week). And we made an appointment for the next week. I was either sick or had bad allergies that week and I don't know if this affected the nursing but she only gained 3 oz that week. I had to beg for those three ounces too because the nurse didn't record the weight correctly the first time. The scales at the pediatrician's office is on a scale of 0 to 10 while there are 16 ounces in a pound. So every time the digital scale shows a weight the nurse or doctor has to look at a conversion chart which translates the scale to from 10 to 16. When the nurse weighed her this time, she was 7lbs 14 ounces on the scale which converted to 7 lbs 16 oz according to their chart. But the nurse only recorded the 7lbs 14oz which meant Adrianna had only gained 1 oz. After that, the appoinments/weigh ins felt like tests of how good a mother I am.

I went to a lactation consultant as suggested just to make sure there wasnt a serious problem. She determined that despite a small issue with the our latching technique, everything was fine. I always thought breast feeding would be easy because I have large nipples. But because of my nipple size, Adrianna was having a hard time latching on and she wasn't taking in the whole areola which is where sinuses are. However, despie all the drama and fuss made over her weight gain, she has consistently gained an average of 6 ounces per week and is a healthy happy girl. I am not even sure why they make such a big deal about weight gain since every scale is different and will vary by a couple of ounces which is huge for a baby. In addition, a baby can weigh several ounces more due to a full tummy or a full bladder/bowels. So in reality the weigh ins and all the alarmist drama around them are pretty useless except that they worry the mother. If the baby is alert and healthy and is hydrated and has a good nunber of poops and pees then she is fine. I sometimes think that western medicine likes to justify its own existence by worrying people about things that really should not be a concern.

First post

Adrianna's Birth - I should mention first that my midwife was supposed to report to jury duty on May 1st and my husband was supposed to go to Chicago for work Monday morning as well. I started to have contractions on Saturday night (April 29th) but I didn't know they were contractions. I just noticed I had a lot of back pain and I kept waking up which isn't much different than normal late pregnancy. My husband put his hands on my stomach on Sunday morning and said he thought they were contractions. I went down stairs to eat something. I had an apple and as I was walking out of the kitchen and back upstairs, I lost my muscous plug. Still I was thinking that that can happen two weeks before you give birth. But patrick thought I was in labor. I called my doula and my mom. And patrick and I started to pack a bag. Patrick was downstairs and I was upstairs. He handed me my cell phone to call him in case I needed him but couldn't make it down stairs. I called him when I started to throw the apple up. It wasn't due to pain, I think it was hormones. We then went for a walk. We walked down by the park near our house. We passed the ice cream store. I had a craving for ice cream but I hadn't been eating junk food during my pregnancy so I didn't want to buy a full serving. So, I pretended that I wanted some ice cream and asked for a taste of kalua chip. Then told the girl a lie that I would be back later and continued on our walk. Patrick took some video of me before I went into serious labor but I still was in disbelief that it was in fact labor. When we got back he made me some eggs because if I were in labor we knew I would need some protein. The contactions got more and more frequent and the back pain was a little more intense. I ate some peanut butter which would haunt me for the rest of the labor. Around 3:00 PM I laid down on the bed with a chucks pad under me just in case. My husband started to rub my back and I felt what seemed like a big kick in my uterus. Patrick asked me what happened because I was a little in shock and I said hestitantly "I think my water just broke." And then the water just came gushing out without any meconium. I think that was the weirdest feeling of all.I started shaking a little due to the shock to my body. Anyway, after that we called my midwife and my doula. We asked my doula to come over. She got there about 5:00 PM. I was having heavy back labor and was using my yoga teacher (Erin's) tip on vocalizing to get through it. I had bought a labor ball and was using all the bradley child birthing positions. Patrick was massaging my back with tennis balls. They alternated massaging and helping me. At one point Kelly wet a cold towel to press against me during labor. In the middle of a contraction, I turned to her and said " I don't want to use the new towels." Looking back, t us funny that that even crossed my mind. My contractions were about 2 minutes apart until about 8 PM but they were getting more and more intense. I started to feel tired and my vocalizations were getting louder and louder. I had to really work to keep the low tones instead of the high ones. I was sitting backwards on the toilet screaming through the pain and my hands and toes were curling. That was the worst of the contractions. I told my doula I was tired and didn't know how I could go on much longer. She said one contraction at a time. Looking back, no one knew I was in transition at that time. I guess on the exterior I was really calm. We tried all kinds of things to turn the baby because she was posterior (thus all the back labor). We tried using belly dancing moves etc. It just didn't work I guess. My doula suggested that I lie on the bed. I did. I felt like I had a poop the entire time. (this may be too much info) I didn't realize that giving birth sometimes feels like pooping and especially since she was posterior I guess this was accented. I decided I might as well try to push to poop because at some point I would poop during labor anyway and there was no reason at this point to be modest. I had been drinking warm prune juice for the last couple of weeks of pregnancy in order to facilitate the age old pregnancy problem...constipation. So I knew at some point I would be subjected to pooping in front of whomever was there during my labor. Anyway, I tried pushing to get the embarrassment over with and because I was uncomfortable and immediately afterwards I started to have involuntary urges to push. Coincidentally, we had called my midwife around this time to see what she thought. She heard my labor over the phone and thought it was time to come in. It wasn't until my doula heard and saw the involuntary pushing that she agreed. I was afraid to go in the car because I was having heavy contractions but throughout all of them I had either had my doula or patrick massaging my back. I was afraid it would be too much to travel in the car and get the contractions with help. I put the night gown and bathrobe combo on that I had bought from Marshalls for $19.99. I remembered to take my wedding ring off because you cannot wear jewelry in labor and I was afraid they might lose it. I was amazed at myself that my mind and memory was so keen at such a time. And got in the car with a chucks pad under me and my doula following us in her car. We got to the hospital at around 9 PM. Patrick parked the car out front while we waited for Kelly (the doula to arrive). Once she had parked her car and could stay with me, Patrick parked our car. I was still having contractions and was leaning over the chairs in the lobby. A woman came up to us and gave me a wheel chair. Patrick and kelly rolled me up to the labor and delivery area. Kelly told me to get up and walk because they would treat me like I needed intervention/medicine if I could not walk to my room. When I got up there was amniotic fluid in the chair. I made my way down the hall and into the room. Kelly had brought my birth plan with her which stated no intervention. A nurse, Mary, put a hand held monitor on my uterus to hear the baby's heart beat. I guess the heart beat went down during the contraction so she wanted to hear it one more time. She listened a second time and then decided it was fine. My midwife arrived and I got on the bed on all fours. My midwife examined me and said I was ready to push any time. I asked her "am I dilated." She looked at me and almost laughed and said "yes you are fully dilated." I had had a leap on my cervix previously (surgery for dysplasia) and was afraid I wouldn't dilate without help. I found out later that one of the nurses, Janet that my mom struck up relationship with, knew I was 9 or 10 centimeters dilated just by how focused and concentrated I was walking down the hall to my room. Honestly, I can't for the life of me remember seeing or meeting janet on my walk to the room. I started to push and they suggested that I move into a squatting position. Meanwhile, I guess patrick was being harrassed by some admitting nurse to sign a bunch of papers. We had preregistered with the hospital when we took the tour but I guess there were many other papers that we had to sign. Patrick was not happy with the fact that he had to be distracted with the bureaucracy while I was in heavy labor, trying to push the baby out. He was able to dispatch the admitting nurse and was told that he could video tape the labor but only still shots were allowed during the birth. They changed the bed to incline and showed me the little divet in the bed where my but could go. I didn't actively push at first because I was expecting the contractions to do most of the work. I had also written in my birth plan that I didn't want directed pushing but I am very glad that both my midwife and my doula did tell me when to push. I pushed what I thought was hard a couple of times and was told I needed to push even harder. I started pushing as hard as I could and pushing even farther past that. My midwife, Andrea, Kelly my doula, nurse Mary, Andrea's student midwife and my husband were all there. Kelly kept saying encouraging things to me but I couldn't understand her. I was so inside myself that it just sounded like noise. All I could hear my my midwife telling me to push. I remember saying to Kelly over and over (and she can confirm this) that I had no idea what she was saying. I pushed for a while and was making progress. I pushing was much easier than the back labor I had experienced earlier. There was only 1 surge of intense back pain during this portion of my labor and in my head I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed but when I watched it on video, I was very calm. In fact the only thing out of my mouth were the very dead pan words "back pain." The fact that I had been so calm during all of my labor was also what helped contribute to the fact that it was difficult to determine that I was in transition at home. Andrea thought I would make more progress if I were to lie in the side lying position. I laid on my left side with my right leg up as they teach you in bradley. I think someone was helping me keep that leg up. I grabbed onto the bed's side railing and pushed at my midwife's cue with as much effort as I could and then some. I kept hearing people praise me with how hard I was pushing and I thought they were just being supportive. However, after the birth was over I was told that they were amazed at how strong I was. Kelly said all my muscles were flexed during the pushes. I went through about 5 or 6 rounds of pushing. My midwife was brilliant and pushed my left leg to give me leverage. Each time I was told by my midwife that they could see the head and that I was very close. Because the baby was posterior, she was having a hard time getting past my pelvic bone so it would really take a large push to get her out. Andrea told me to put my hand down to feel the baby's head as encouragement to show me how close I was. She also placed a big angled mirror at the end of the bed so that I could see the birth. I knew though that I had to stay inside myself in order to push the baby out. I would have liked to have seen the birth but I needed all my concentration for the task at hand. I closed my eyes through each push and gave it everything I could. I could feel andrea massaging my perenium to prevent any tear. It didn't hurt but I did not feel the famous "ring of fire" that people describe during this portion of labor. I did 1 more series of three strong pushes and I heard "yay" and all of a sudden the baby was on my chest. I was in shock that it was over. She was born at 10:16 PM on April 30th and weighed 7 lb 10oz and 18 1/2" long. The baby was beautiful and pink. From all the videos I had seen, newborns were blue and bloody, not pink. I asked if I had torn and I was told that I only had a mild abrasion. Someone asked if it was a boy or a girl and I laughed because I didn't even bother to ask. We knew it was supposed to be a girl but there was always a chance that it was a boy. I tried to breast feed but the baby had a lot of muscous and was having a hard time latching on. We waited for the placenta to finish pulsating and be delivered before cutting the cord. Patrick didn't think he would want to cut the cord but just in case I had put in the birth plan that either he or I would cut the cord. They clamped the cord and patrick cut it. Then she laid on my chest for a while. They tried to get some of the mucous from her nose and mouth and when she still wouldn't latch on I asked patrick if he wanted to hold her. He held her for a while and then I believe a pediatric nurse came in to examine the baby. My mom had arrived around now. We had called her to tell her to come to the hospital but we couldn't get a hold of her. We were suprised but glad when she arrived in the delivery room. The nurse said that her temperature was low and that she had congested breathing. I thought the nurse was overexaggerating and I had asked for full time rooming in but my mom and husband thought maybe she should go with the nurse to the nursery for observation. I made them verify the tags on all of us and then patrick followed the nurse and the baby to the nursery. I stayed with my mom. The nurses disappeared and I really needed to go to the bathroom. It didn't occur to me that I was still bleeding. I got out of bed and went to the toilet leaving a stream of blood from the bed to the toilet. A not so nice nurse came in and scolded me. But then Linda a very nice labor and delivery nurse came in to clean up and she helped me take a shower and get in one of the reclining chairs that were on wheels. My husband came back after a while and told me the nurse wanted to watch the baby for a short while longer. They rolled me to the post partum room and brought the baby back in. The room was fairly nice but I was sad to leave the care of the labor and delivery nurses. We pushed to do early discharge which for Kent Hospital was 24 hours. I am so glad we did because for the next 24 hours we had post partum care from the nurses using techniques from 20 years ago. We had to have a staff pediatrician come in and examine her to get early discharge since our pediatrician didn't have access to kent. The baby had a bruise on her head and a slight puncture due to the fact that she had to get past my pelvic bone. During the 24 hours in post partum, patrick and I decided on a name. We were going to call her Sedona Avery but she didn't look like a Sedona. Adrianna Summer was another name we had chosen as an alterntative. Adrienne was patrick's grandfather's name and Adrianna is his sister Robin's middle name. We didn't choose the name Adrianna after patrick's grandfather. We just both liked the sound of the name. My father had died two years ago and his name was Henry. My mom wanted us to choose a hebrew name for the baby. A hebrew name does not have to go on the birth certificate. It is tradition to have the hebrew name start with the same letter as the first letter of a family member that died. In this case, that letter would be H. We liked the name Hali the best out of the hebrew names starting with H. But I wasn't sure if it was pronounced Hayley or Ha-lee or Hal-lee. So we decided to use the anglicized version of the name and gave her the middle name Hailey. Her hebrew name is Hali but her official middle name also starts with an H in honor of my dad. Once our 24 hours were up (at 10:16 PM on May 1st), Adrianna had her PKU test and we were allowed to leave. We were both exhausted and Adrianna was not very happy since she had just had her foot pricked and squeezed to fill the 4 dots with blood as required by the PKU test. We came home and had a hard time getting her to sleep. In desparation, we put her in the bouncy seat that was given us by a friend of my mom's and put her in the middle of the bed. We went to the pediatrician the next day. We didn't know what the baby weighed when we left the hospital. We had thrown the whole staff off by leaving at such a strange hour. But we felt like we were hostages in the hospital room. The food was bad, the care was antiquated and we wanted to start our new life. The pediatrician said Adrianna weighed 6 lbs 15 oz, she looked healthy and told us to come back on friday.