For a woman flowers are such a lovely gift to receive at any time of the year. It’s one of those purchases you wouldn’t ordinarily make for yourself so it’s a beautiful treat to receive. But when you’ve just given birth to a beautiful little newborn the last thing you should have hovering over his/her cot are flowers with pollen and especially flowers more than one day old. Bacteria and mould begin to grow in the water soaked stems and is circulated around through the air. There’s a reason that ICU’s (Intensive Care Units) don’t allow flowers.

Put the word out that you’d love simple/thoughtful gifts that aren’t of the floral variety. We are blessed with a beautiful friend who sent us an amazing box of 0000 ‘hand me down’ clothing for our girls and it was far more useful than any bunch of flowers. To this day that gift remains the most valuable in memory. Pre washed, pre loved clothing is the BEST thing that can go on your newborn baby’s skin. Chemicals from it’s manufacture are all but gone and this fabric is second only to organic cotton garments. Pre loved’s are gold! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts Marianne xo

Ponder this, how often would you imagine a man sends his ties out for dry cleaning?…….hmmm. Now watch as it hovers over you or your baby as he leans in to check you over. How many other patients has he leaned over since that little piece of polyester or silk last saw the inside of a laundromat? More likely it’s been with him through many lunch and dinners, bathroom visits, request for patients to cough, habitual stroking as you see many men do, and then rolled up in an office drawer somewhere day after day collecting various particles over many months or even years.  So if you feel shy about asking, take a lonnnnng look at that tie and picture the life it may have lead. You should feel completely at ease asking him to tuck it into his shirt…and then wash his hands.

Sleep. That elusive of most enjoyed human needs when you become “mummy”. Sleep. Oh treasured moments of peaceful rest.

When you have just experienced the joy of giving birth whether natural or by cesarean, at the end of it your little baby is safely in your arms helpless, hopeful, needing you. Who can sleep at a time like this?

I sat in bed watching them awestruck. I have two baby girls. I have TWO baby girls. As each of them woke for the breast I loved every moment of nourishing them and holding them close feeling them relax with a total sense of security. I would lay one daughter down and sit….and watch….and wait…in contented amazement. Time slipped by as I fed each of them separately throughout the night. Rarely did they wake together and rarely did I ask the nurses for help. Occasionally one had not finished burping before the other woke and I begrudgingly took her out to a nurse at the desk and asked them to burp her for me. Relinquishing my grasp and heading back to the room to feed the other. Luckily my door was directly in front of the desk because that was the only way I could bear handing them over! Though it seemed to work out nicely most times. I would feed and burp one and then feed and burp the other, then sit, and smile, watching them sleep. Then I’d blink and daylight would be breaking with the mutterings and movements of breakfast carts being wheeled around the ward. “Morning already? Oooh I wonder what’s for breakfast! I love those little bread rolls.” I’d eat the roll with jam and the cereal and right on cue my girls would wake up for their feed. I was in heaven! It felt as though everything was going right. I’d feed and change them and then my partner and mother would arrive around 8:00 or 9:00am. Smoooooth. “Did you have a good night?” they’d ask. “Wonderful! So lovely being with my girls” I said every day…until the fourth evening everything came to an abrupt halt.

It seems I’d neglected to schedule my own sleep somewhere in those first 3 nights and days of motherhood….and I was about to pay for it, big time. While my parents-in-law were visiting just before 6:00pm on the fourth night I started to slump down and my head started constricting and hurting. My shoulders seized up and I couldn’t talk. Seeing the bad state I was in they quickly left to let Gerard tend to me. I cried but crying hurt even more. I slumped down on the bed and Gerard called out to the nurses for help. They came along, “What seems to be the problem”. “I have a migraine, help me, help me“. Is all I could manage to say. I was sweating and crying and couldn’t sit up if my life depended on it. A little ole thing called sleep. You don’t know what it’s worth till your body is so far in the red it decides to shut you down to make it’s point crystal clear! They gave me some sort of pain pill that only just took the edge off it. Gerard told the nurses, “I’m not going home. I’m staying right here. She’s going to sleep and I’m going to look after the babies”. He wheeled their cribs out and ordered me to stay put. Not that I could have gotten out of bed to chase him. And even though the rules are all visitors OUT by 6:00pm the nurses had obviously let him stay because around 4 hours later Gerard brought the girls back into the room screaming their little hearts out. “I’m sorry baby I’ve tried to comfort them to let you sleep as long as I could”. I’d gathered just enough sleep to function again. I sat up groggy but insistent, “Bring them here!! I have to feed them!” and after feeding them slumped back down still in a very bad way. A few hours later after begging for a doctor to come and prescribe something more they finally arrived around 1:00am and gave me an injection which relieved the pain and helped me sleep again. But I endured the irritating, mind bending feeling of being submerged in a watery tunnel for the next 3 days. That’s the only way I could describe it to my family and doctors.

My first point is this, relish in the very special precious hours and days of your new role as mummy but even if you have to force yourself to sleep, figure out a way to do it and do it! I normally have a low blood pressure of around 100/80 sometimes as low as 90/70 but it had skyrocketed to 165 /120 and they said I most likely developed pre eclampsia after the birth. Which coupled with my own adrenaline and excitement may have accounted for my being able to last 3 nights without sleep!

Looking back at my baby diary though and the photos of me after 32 weeks I was retaining ridiculous amounts of fluid (the skin on my feet stung it was stretched so far) and I have no memory of my urine being tested at antenatal appointments for higher than normal protein. My blood pressure was also elevated to about 130/90 which was high for me but in the doctors eyes not an issue. It is quite possible that I developed pre eclampsia well before the birth (at 38 weeks 5 days) but no one did the ‘routine’ tests for it. Given that pre eclampsia can lead to reduced blood flow to the uterus affecting the growth of your baby, possible placental abruption, organ damage (liver, kidneys and brain) and clotting and seizures for the mother, this was a very dangerous and potentially fatal oversight.

So my second point is this, research everything that should be getting done at your antenatal appointments and if they don’t organise it as a matter of course, ask them to. We utilised the public health system which meant lengthy waits at the antenatal appointments and an obvious oversight of routine tests that should have been performed. Given I expressed my discomfort to the doctors of the massive amounts of fluid retention it was quite negligent not to run the pre eclampsia test.

It’s vitally important to be aware of the warning signs of pre eclampsia so that you can alert your caregiver and get treated as soon as possible. The alternative could be bleak. I was very lucky.

I’m a small woman but by the end of my twin pregnancy I was absolutely HUGE. Big didn’t describe me but I didn’t get one stretch mark on my tummy, hips or thighs. By chance I bought a bottle of Pregnancy Oil from “Perfect Potion” early in the pregnancy and applied it every day. It’s main ingredient is avocado oil which we all know is good for us internally but now has proven itself to me externally too. I packed on 25kgs when I last weighed myself at 37 weeks and didn’t give birth till 38 weeks 5 days. So I would have easily put on at least another 5kg bringing total weight gain to over 30kgs. I attribute my very fortunate result to the avocado oil. I highly recommend you buy the oil and not the cream. In general creams just have a thickener added and it isn’t as effective or potent in it’s benefits as the oil. I’m astounded and so thankful that I didn’t get any stretch marks.

This is my Yummy Mummy Secret #1 to you!

No stretch marks!

Photo taken 2 months after birth and I had dropped all the painful fluid associated with the last 2 months of the pregnancy and pre-eclampsia. 19 months on and I’m still waiting for my ribcage to return to it’s normal position and the xiphoid process (the very last bone at the bottom of your ribcage) that was pushed outwards to go back in. I’m guessing it won’t. Well at least it’ll be in the right position for the next pregnancy!

Nursery Furniture
“Old is Gold” when it comes to nursery furniture. Pre-Loved or Hand Me Down items I believe are the healthiest for your home but be sure they still meet the current Australian Safety Standards. I’m not talking ollllllld here but getting your hands on furniture that is 2, 3 or 4 years old IS gold. Cots, rocking chairs, change tables, bookcases, toy chests etc have had a chance to off-gas toxic chemicals (like Formaldehyde in the particleboard: “What effect might formaldehyde have on my health? Exposure to formaldehyde irritates the eyes, nose, and throat, and can cause skin and lung allergies. Higher levels can cause throat spasms and a build-up of fluid in the lungs, leading to death. Contact can cause severe eye and skin burns, leading to permanent damage. These may appear hours after exposure, even if no pain is felt. Formaldehyde can cause an asthma-like allergy. Future exposures can cause asthma attacks, with shortness of breath, wheezing, cough, and/or chest tightness. Repeated exposures may cause bronchitis, with symptoms of cough and shortness of breath. Formaldehyde is classified by the NOHSC as a Category 2 carcinogen (substance that should be regarded as if it is carcinogenic to humans)”.

Buying clean second hand furniture is better for the health of the air in your baby’s room, and therefore baby’s lungs. Source items that only have superficial damage to resist the temptation of sanding it back and repainting as you’ll be nullifying the benefits of aged off-gassed furniture. Excited new parents wanting the ‘best’ for their baby make the common mistake of heading out and buying all brand new shiny furniture usually straight from China, slapping new paint on the walls and laying new carpet full of carcinogenic glues and backing in baby’s room. This in itself is a bad scenario but it is usually exacerbated by this room staying shut up until baby is born condensing the issue and creating a toxic pit of gasses. Continuous off-gassing will usually persist for a couple of years with it’s most intense off-gassing in the first year. This makes for an extremely toxic environment for your newborn baby’s tiny lungs and they don’t have the capacity to tell you they’re in pain with symptoms of exposure to these air pollutants like Formaldehyde. See more info in “Your House is a Toxic Soup”. Ask your friends if they have items to lend or sell and if that fails search Ebay or your local Trading Post for sturdy, well maintained items you won’t need to repaint. They rarely have too much wear and tear as nursery furniture isn’t exposed to high traffic like a dining table or couch. Or if you must purchase brand new do it as early as possible and put it in an area that is well ventilated so it has at least 9 months to off-gas. Paint baby’s room with ‘Low VOC’ paint (becoming readily available at hardware stores) as soon as possible and lay natural fibre carpet. Sisal, wool, coir, woven paper. Here’s one good website I’ve found www.naturalfloor.com.au but just Google “natural carpet” and nosey around to learn more. I might also write an article dedicated to safe flooring in the home. Stay tuned.

Remember when buying brand new that cheap is cheap for a reason. Somewhere down the production line someone always pays, and it’s not always financial, it’s with their health. (The Story of Stuff) Even expensive furniture can have cheap materials incorporated into the finished product to improve profit margins.

Research well, prepare early and feel at ease with your choices for your baby’s room.

My man must think he’s Peter Pan!

Cyclone Yasi - Do I stay or do I go now?

Is it just me? Have I lived such a nomadic life in the last 10 years that packing up your loved ones & driving out of harms way seems like the logical course of action in such an epic instance of danger? “Nahhhhhhh she’ll be right, we’ll ride it out” Sit in your bathroom/toilet with your children crying out in terror for hours on end while a Category 5 tears at your house. Begs the question ARE YOU COMPLETELY *@$%ING BONKERS?!! Make like a backpacker AND LEAVE!

Get in your car and drive. As far South as needed to reach safety. (Mackay was recommended by the emergency services.) Come back tomorrow (or later) and do the clean up. Is it really so terrible to abandon your house and let it ride out the storm on it’s own? It is a house, after all. You can’t protect it. You can’t reassure it. You can’t cuddle it while it cries through the furious storm or try desperately to keep it safe and dry after it’s roof flies off in a screech of metal and broken glass. But you’ll need to do that for your children you have huddled under a mattress in the bathroom. To ask your children to endure an emotional, psychological and in all likelihood, physical trauma by staying in the path of a monster Category 5 cyclone with 300km/hour winds and a dangerous storm surge is pure insanity. By choosing also to simply relocate from your house to a local emergency shelter does little to remove them from that path of danger.

Survivors of Cyclone Tracy in 1974 are weighing in commenting on this question of stay or go. They say if you were unfortunate enough to go through Tracy you sure wouldn’t be squatting in the path of Yasi ‘bunkering down’. You’d get out of there.

I have friends saying “The people of Innisfail should be in everybody’s prayers tonight.”

My response was “The people of Innisfail should be in Mackay tonight!”

For those who stayed, may you and your family live to tell the tale and share your fear and new-found respect for mother nature. May your childrens’ fearful experience not traumatise them for life. May friends and neighbours rally together after this epic event to lighten the burden that follows. May you never again choose to stay, when you could go.

Our thoughts are with you.

JK

Wow. Where to begin on this topic! If you’re truly lucky like one of my friends, you’re in the elite few and your baby may be sleeping in 5 hour bursts at the age of 4 weeks. Or if you’re like most of us you’re in the same dinky boat as nearly everyone else and your little one is waking every 2 hours, give/take. This is ‘normal’. I say normal loosely because what’s normal for one baby is not normal for another. Let’s say ‘average’.

We were blessed with twins so we had the usual issues of one waking the other. We found they woke every 1.5 – 2 hours throughout the night. I breastfed the girls perched on a twin feeding pillow with the help of my mum who stayed with us for the first six weeks. Sometimes they would wake about a half hour apart and I fed them separately one by one. This made it easy not having to rip off all my clothes from the waist up in the middle of winter to don the sexy (but cold) twin feeding pillow but it meant I had only a 1/2 hour chance to grab a wink or two before the next feed. Usually I had a 30-45min window to sleep every 2 hours. I can tell you after a few weeks of having shallow, broken sleep, you may be feeling slightly lost, foggy or irritable. The classic and well known catchphrase “Baby Brain” is thrown around. It’s not Baby Brain. When I was dossing on a mate’s floor in London years ago, woken up constantly throughout the night by flatmates coming and going, I had the same lost, foggy feeling trying to function throughout the day. It isn’t baby brain. It’s sleep deprivation! I couldn’t find files at work or get my head together to be anywhere half as efficient as normal. You need sleep. Period. So don’t decide to mop the floor or hang washing out when you have the golden opportunity for a half hour nap with your baby during the day. Women push, push, push and we think we have this vast untapped reserve of energy that will never run out. Oh faux pas! It will, and when you need it most, like wind-down for night time and making dinner. 4:00pm was my brick wall. I didn’t know whether I was Arthur or Shirley Temple! NAP. Nap every single chance you can get without a morsel of guilt!

To Safely Deliver your Baby Letting Go of All Expectations
One website describes a “Birth Plan” as “…a way of communicating with the midwives and doctors who care for you in labour. It tells them about the kind of labour you would like to have, what you want to happen and what you definitely want to avoid. It’s not written in tablets of stone because the best birth plans acknowledge that things may not go according to plan. Sometimes people prefer to call the birth plan a set of ‘birth wishes’ or ‘intentions’.”

I wholeheartedly agree with this approach. Make a very loose idea of a ‘birth plan’ as it’s an oxymoron. Everything can rapidly change before and during the birth despite the best of ‘plans’. I prepared a birth plan but was told at my last scan around 35 weeks that one of our twins was breech and they strongly advised I have a cesarean wrapped up neatly with a warning scenario of only taking one baby home if I attempted a natural birth. I was in tears in the doctor’s office because I so wanted a natural birth.

Letting go of all plans is best as an alternative ending can leave you feeling like you’ve failed or been robbed which brings with it a world of emotional upheaval at a time when your hormones are fluctuating wildly. Make your ‘intention’ to “Safely Deliver your Baby Letting Go of All Expectations”. Focus on steeling your mind and your body ready for anything. Keep physically strong with yoga and low impact exercise and mentally strong with practiced meditation or prayer (whatever your thing is). The more time and energy you invest in strengthening yourself the better the big day will be.

Unless you have a severe medical condition that necessitates a pre-booked cesarean, focus on what is within your control and decide on everything else as it happens. They have drugs on hand if you change your mind, you don’t have to put them on backorder! The emergency cesarean staff are on call if things get difficult. So take care of what you can control: your body and your mind, and let the rest fall into place as it happens. We’re women, we’re built for this task. The medical profession have instilled a silent but deadly mistrust in ourselves to be able to confidently see this natural task through from start to finish under our own steam. Why? Because there’s no money in a woman laying in their birthing ward for 12 hours or more not consuming anything from the drug industry or validating the anesthetist’s salary. Nor is it very convenient playing the waiting game for her to complete the task herself. But with a cesarean – wow! “I’ll be finished up here in about 20 minutes and home in time for dinner honey”. It’s a very convenient route for doctors make no mistake.

If I hadn’t had twins and it wasn’t suggested to me that there was a chance if things went wrong only taking one home I would have rejected a cesarean until during birth I was told it was necessary for the babies’ and my safety. I don’t judge women who doubt they are capable of birthing naturally because the industry is so good at manipulating the belief she needs them to do the job safely. Unless you have a medical condition that necessitates a cesarean, research all the help out there for a natural labour before jumping on the “Too Posh to Push” limo.  I’m not implying ‘drug free’ labour here. (It’s not criminal to ask for pain relief. You don’t go to the dentist for a root canal and go a la naturale!) I’m talking about researching various birth assistance like Doula’s, acupuncture, massage, water birth, spinal taps, epidurals, meditation, visualisation etc before you consider going under the knife as the only option because it’s too scary to go it alone (Fear, neatly delivered in a box with a bow by the medical industry).

Between you, me and the ether I’m skeptical my scheduled cesarean was at all necessary. Their advice at that last ultrasound was that Twin 1 was breech and Twin 2 was head down in the birth canal. Problem was that meant they were now saying that Twin 1/2 were the opposite to what they had been my whole pregnancy. So I countered saying no Twin 2 is breech and Twin 1 is head down ready to go. They’re doing the right thing. They’re ready! Twin 2 is up under my ribs out of the way. But the doctor said, perhaps, but are you willing to take that chance they don’t both try to birth at the same time? And I was presented with a previous scenario of twins chins interlocking and dying before getting into surgery. Which is what the compulsion came down to in the end. Fear. So they booked me in for a c-section at 38 weeks 5 days expecting they would probably come earlier, but they didn’t. They were very comfortable in there, in what I believe was the perfect position for birth. But because I hadn’t availed myself to a mother’s group or spoken to a Doula I had no one else to listen to but the doctor…and my own fear.

My Grandmother birthed my father and his twin brother safely back in the day, which back then was probably safer than major abdominal surgery! But I’ve only recently found that many mothers of multiples give birth naturally and even birth breech babies safely but I was lead to imagine practically all multiple births now went the road of cesarean because of the perceived and sometimes inherent dangers of birthing more than one baby. I wish I had questioned the need for a ‘scheduled’ cesarean more heavily and requested an attempted natural birth with cesarean if it were clear it was necessary. I could have then at least given my girls and myself, the chance to experience the natural journey, the intended conclusion of pregnancy.

I really enjoyed this video on YouTube sharing some pregnant mothers’ day of joy birthing their multiples naturally. Even if you have a single pregnancy (which I hope to get next time!) you can appreciate the enormity of trusting your body and your medical support to birth naturally at home or in the hospital. It opened my eyes to follow my instincts more closely even when it comes to a daunting scenario I’ve never before encountered. Like any new mum 1,2,3,4 or more, it’s a big brave new world and there’s SO much to learn.

Unfortunately for me, the painless ‘easy’ cesarean birth so many mothers opt for was nothing of the kind for me. My story “Cesarean: The “Painless” Pain“  details my dreadful ‘birth’ experience on the operating table. If I felt that birthing via c-section was somehow less of a ‘right of passage’ to motherhood, I certainly didn’t afterwards. I endured some pain!

But it is what it is and I accept the end of my pregnancy journey as it stands because at the end of the day To Safely Deliver your Baby Letting Go of All Expectations is the beginning of the next beautiful journey. Motherhood. 

JK

Are you giving birth vaginally or having a cesarean? If it’s a planned cesarean or your vaginal birth eventuates into an emergency cesarean be sure to talk to your doctor about the two anesthetic options. Spinal Block -vs- Epidural. The spinal block they gave me didn’t work very well and although I didn’t feel the ‘sharp’ or ‘cold’ as promised I felt enormous pain and braced groaning through tears and gritted teeth throughout the 30 minute operation clutching desperately on to my partner on one side and a nurse on the other.  Here’s how my doctor-recommended safe and “easy” cesarean birth of our beautiful twin girls went south, fast.

The Gold Coast Hospital registrar anesthetist working on the day (who looked about 21) administered my spinal block. She had many attempts inserting it into my spine and at one point I heard the overseeing senior anesthetist say “Is that bone?“. Now THAT’s the last thing you want to hear. Needless to say I was in some pain and it wasn’t long before anxiety began to wash over me. I finally said to the senior anesthetist “You can step in anytime!” to which she replied “No she’s doing fine“. So I continued leaning forward and holding on to the nurse in front of me. After another 10 seconds or so I said to the nurse holding me “I’d like her to stop practising on me now please” to which she replied “I’m sorry. This is a training hospital“. I was speechless. I could not even after a full minute or so of enduring “practice” request someone senior to step in upon reaching a point of concern. I was already nervous facing major surgery (not by choice) and about to become an instant mother of two and certainly did not need a novice fiddling with my spinal cord…but it was about to get worse. She continued and by the time I was wheeled into surgery and met my partner I was visibly shaken and on seeing him broke into tears. I composed myself and got focused on the task at hand only to find the spinal block had indeed not been administered well at all.

Although I didn’t feel the ‘sharp’ or ‘cold’ as promised, I felt the blade open my skin like a zipper and I felt the doctor’s hands inside me pulling and shoving trying to get to the babies and at one point felt like he’d pushed his foot up in there for good measure. Alllllll the way up to my ribs. My organs felt as though they were squashed in a vice and shoved up and down and back and forth within my abdomen. That is the only way I could describe it to my partner afterward. Then the horrible stretch of the skin and pop as their heads were pulled through the cut.

I experienced enormous pain and remember it was a guttural, primal type groan coming from me that I couldn’t contain nor hold any focus to meditate through it. (It’s one thing to prepare yourself for the pain of a natural childbirth but quite another to face intense pain during a procedure you’ve been told has none!) The senior anesthetist said to me, “I’m going to have to knock you out with a general if you can’t be quiet! The doctor can’t work like this!” to which I replied through the pain “DO NOT knock me out I want to be conscious for my girls’ birth!!” and she said “Well you’ll have to control yourself, you have to be quiet!“. So I held my breath but I couldn’t contain the noise of the pain, it was impossible. A primal response. It was like asking a woman going through natural labour to be quiet! Looking back it was disgusting treatment of a completely vulnerable woman.

My entire shoulders, neck and head seized up as I clutched tightly on to my partner on one side and a nurse on the other. They begged me to keep breathing and focus on releasing my shoulders to no avail. I was clenched up from my feet up my legs through my chest and shoulders to the top of my head. I could have swung my legs off the operating table and ran and I can tell you I wanted to! Even when the doctor was stitching me up and wiping me down with antiseptic fluid I was begging the nurse to ask him to stop. “Stop. Stop. I’m clean enough!” is all I could say. The vigorous rubbing on my skin whose nerves were firing off after being severed was almost electric and blinding. I was near passing out.

To top off the horrid treatment I received from the senior anesthetist during a vulnerable and powerless event, as I was wheeled out of surgery I heard the doctor ask her what had happened there?! And she responded to him oh she was just hypertensive. I was  physically shaking in shock from the ordeal and couldn’t say anything or express any anger at the time. I had my girls finally safely delivered to my arms and that was all that mattered at the point.

I don’t know why a spinal block was administered and not an epidural but I certainly wasn’t offered a choice nor told the pro’s and con’s of both. I know of two other mothers who had a similar to more intense experience than this. One felt the sharp slice of the blade and screamed out only to be told there was nothing they could do now they had to continue.

In short, epidurals are different to spinal blocks. The needle for an epidural is thicker and so there is slightly more risk of spinal fluid leakage which can give you migraines after birth, but the risk of feeling all the cutting and pulling of the baby inside your body is removed. You’re completely numb from the high waist down. Whereas with the spinal block I really could have swung my legs off the table and ran in the middle of the operation. Survival instinct is screaming RUN and the only force stronger than that was the need to protect those little babies tucked away inside my body.

If it weren’t for two other mothers within my circle reporting terrible results with a spinal block I may have put it down operator error. But hearing of other cases it’s certainly something that should be discussed and shared with others. On the flipside, a friend who had an epidural for two cesarean births didn’t feel a thing for either. So talk about the pro’s and con’s of both anesthetic options with your doctor and make an informed choice.

If you’re considering an elective cesarean, before you believe your own internal doubts and fears of not being strong enough to birth vaginally research it thoroughly. Look at all it’s options including anesthesia choices, water birth, acupuncture, doula assisted, home birth etc before you take the cesarean path. Watch some vaginal births. Watch some cesarean births. Watch some home births. YouTube is at your disposal. It’s a difficult watch initially but the more exposure you get to it, the less it will affect you. And that’s a good thing. Embrace it. It’s the road you’re on and there’s a fork up ahead.