Wednesday, September 26, 2012
So I guess that makes me a unicorn?
I've worked very hard to take good care of my baby during the first few months of her life, so while I was searching for how much I should be feeding her sometime back I found a respected website that it is a myth that many women can't supply their baby's needs in breastfeeding. As I read in baby books, online, and even searched for a lactation consultant I found this sentiment repeated over and over with authors either glossing over supply issues with a trite "true breast milk supply issues are very rare" or in one case going so far as to say "well you've already messed up because you supplemented your baby with formula." This makes me incandescently angry.
As I have struggled to feed my baby I've found that there are several things that can significantly hurt breast milk supply including:
Long Labor - I think my 38 hours in labor would qualify.
Under-active thyroid - If your body doesn't make enough thyroid hormone to support a healthy metabolism then it's probably not going to support breast milk production very well either.
PCOS (Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome) - I've read that PCOS is THE most under-diagnosed condition in women in the US and that it can affect anywhere from 1 in 10 to 1 in 4 (depending on the source) women. That doesn't sound very rare to me at all! In fact I read that many of the same conditions that can cause a woman to have trouble getting pregnant can also make it hard for her to breast feed, so if you had to have fertility treatments you might as well plan to work at this.
And these are just the issues I've personally had to deal with. Some other causes of low supply are:
Anemia - My sister ran into this one, and though I never was technically anemic my iron levels have been very low.
Delivery through C-section - will ALWAYS delay your milk coming in, and can also lead to it coming in slower, so you're constantly playing catch-up
Exhaustion - and who isn't exhausted taking care of a new baby?
And supply issues are a myth? I'm not saying that EVERY woman who suffers from PCOS or thyroid disease will have supply issues, but these are not uncommon conditions! I have to think that supply issues deserve more than a one line dismissal in any treatise on breast feeding, especially since there are things you can do to help, and the earlier you start the better. Come-on LaLeche League, instead of declaring me a non-issue, how about putting some information out there to help and some validation that my issues are REAL!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Chick-fil-A, don't'cha just love it?
I've been paying attention to all this Chick-fil-A controversy. I have a long history with Chick-fil-A, so naturally I sit up and listen whenever I hear them mentioned in the news, or in conversation. I've found that they are neither the paragon of virtue nor the bastion of evil that everyone seems to make them out to be, but like every company out there they have their good points and their bad points. Which outweigh the others I don't know.
I started working at Chick-fil-A at the front counter when I was 16, and continued working there off and on as school allowed for a little over five years. When I first started working there the operator of the store I worked at had two stores, but within a year of my starting he left the store I worked at and went on as operator to other stores. His assistant manager became our new operator. It's worth mentioning that the corporate office at Chick-fil-A likes to keep tabs on what's going on at their stores. All stores are owned by Chick-fil-A, not somebody at the store, and Chick-fil-A has pretty stringent rules about who can become an operator (the equivalent of owner/manager at most franchises) of any store. There may be a very small handful of independently owned stores still out there, but Chick-fil-A stopped granting such franchises years ago, and the few that remain were grandfathered in.
Our new operator held the store together through some really rough years. Shortly after I started, the main anchor store in the shopping center closed. And over the next few years anchor stores came and went, but were gone more than they were there. We also had the unique benefit of being near where several corporate executives lived, so they would often stop by the store to "check up on us" quite frequently. It was at this point that I came to recognize the misogynistic attitude of the corporate office at Chick-fil-A. It's worth noting that a new operator was a divorced woman. When I started working at this Chick-fil-A store it was the closest one to my house, but by the time I left I actually passed three Chick-fil-A's to get to this one. As more stores opened up in the area they naturally cut into the business of the pre-existing store.
One store was within 3 miles of ours. It is debatable whether so many stores in the immediate area would have been approved had the operator at our store held any regard or received any respect from the corporate office. During this time the store was both remodeled and major construction was undertaken to install a new playground. Instead of corporate recognizing that difficult situation, we were expected to grow revenues as if we were still located in a busy shopping center with little competition in the area. Despite hard times remain profitable, even though we didn't achieve the revenue growth dictated by corporate.
Instead of recognizing the achievement of holding the store together in adverse circumstances, win a new super Wal-Mart opened in our shopping center the store was taken away from our operator and given to a new operator. This demonstrates the utter lack of respect that the Chick-fil-A corporate office had for our operator.
Yes Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays, but it is far from the Christian work environment that you might think. For one being closed on Sundays does nothing for orthodox Jews or Seventh Day Adventists. Sure, I worked with plenty of youth pastors who enjoyed the freedom to work two jobs and the assurance that came from knowing that their schedules would never conflict. But I also worked with those who were mentally unstable, had superiors who cursed like sailors, and others who displayed misogynistic behavior including leaving white flour hand prints in inappropriate places on the navy pants of female employees. I had my butt pinched once (he got slapped) and was hit on repeatedly. But with very few exceptions the customers were worse than my co-workers.
However, Chick-fil-A's not a den of iniquity from top to bottom. It has it's redeeming qualities. For starters I worked my way from front counter through pretty much every position in the store, and ended up marketing manager. Chick-fil-A taught me about work ethic and team work, oh, and how to filet chicken. We weren't located in the highest end neighborhood, so this particular Chick-fil-A gave opportunity to some pretty underprivileged folks, and a pretty diverse demographic. I particularly admired one family that had escaped from some South American dictatorship, and all the women in the family worked at Chick-fil-A. It certainly opened my eyes to a variety of circumstances and what can me accomplished with hard work. Lots of folks have heard of Chick-fil-A's Winshape scholarships, but Chick-fil-A has a college scholarship program available to all employees who work a certain number of hours (I don't remember how many). No, it didn't pay for an entire semester, but every little bit helps.
And let's not forget the best thing about Chick-fil-A. I met my husband when we both worked there in high school, and we had our wedding catered by Chick-fil-A years later (by the same operator we both worked for).
Chick-fil-A's probably the only fast food place I could work at and still eat there. In fact, up until a few years ago I still ate at Chick-fil-A at least once a week. I eat there less now not because of any aversion, but simply because I eat out less than I used to.
So no matter what Dan Cathy says, his principles are not pervasive throughout Chick-fil-A, and what he does with his money is his own business. That being said, Chick-fil-A is a privately held company, and I don't know what percentage Dan owns I don't know, but I'm sure its significant. Some part of every dollar spent there is going to trickle up to him eventually.
Not to long ago I realized that in living in a capitalistic society one of the ways we vote is by what we buy. It's a big part of why I drive the car I drive, and buy the frozen pizza that I buy, and Dan Cathy has the right to vote the way he wants as well. It's up to you to decide whether a vote for scholarships and Sundays off outweighs a vote for Dan and misogyny. Or if you just care about the chicken.
I started working at Chick-fil-A at the front counter when I was 16, and continued working there off and on as school allowed for a little over five years. When I first started working there the operator of the store I worked at had two stores, but within a year of my starting he left the store I worked at and went on as operator to other stores. His assistant manager became our new operator. It's worth mentioning that the corporate office at Chick-fil-A likes to keep tabs on what's going on at their stores. All stores are owned by Chick-fil-A, not somebody at the store, and Chick-fil-A has pretty stringent rules about who can become an operator (the equivalent of owner/manager at most franchises) of any store. There may be a very small handful of independently owned stores still out there, but Chick-fil-A stopped granting such franchises years ago, and the few that remain were grandfathered in.
Our new operator held the store together through some really rough years. Shortly after I started, the main anchor store in the shopping center closed. And over the next few years anchor stores came and went, but were gone more than they were there. We also had the unique benefit of being near where several corporate executives lived, so they would often stop by the store to "check up on us" quite frequently. It was at this point that I came to recognize the misogynistic attitude of the corporate office at Chick-fil-A. It's worth noting that a new operator was a divorced woman. When I started working at this Chick-fil-A store it was the closest one to my house, but by the time I left I actually passed three Chick-fil-A's to get to this one. As more stores opened up in the area they naturally cut into the business of the pre-existing store.
One store was within 3 miles of ours. It is debatable whether so many stores in the immediate area would have been approved had the operator at our store held any regard or received any respect from the corporate office. During this time the store was both remodeled and major construction was undertaken to install a new playground. Instead of corporate recognizing that difficult situation, we were expected to grow revenues as if we were still located in a busy shopping center with little competition in the area. Despite hard times remain profitable, even though we didn't achieve the revenue growth dictated by corporate.
Instead of recognizing the achievement of holding the store together in adverse circumstances, win a new super Wal-Mart opened in our shopping center the store was taken away from our operator and given to a new operator. This demonstrates the utter lack of respect that the Chick-fil-A corporate office had for our operator.
Yes Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays, but it is far from the Christian work environment that you might think. For one being closed on Sundays does nothing for orthodox Jews or Seventh Day Adventists. Sure, I worked with plenty of youth pastors who enjoyed the freedom to work two jobs and the assurance that came from knowing that their schedules would never conflict. But I also worked with those who were mentally unstable, had superiors who cursed like sailors, and others who displayed misogynistic behavior including leaving white flour hand prints in inappropriate places on the navy pants of female employees. I had my butt pinched once (he got slapped) and was hit on repeatedly. But with very few exceptions the customers were worse than my co-workers.
However, Chick-fil-A's not a den of iniquity from top to bottom. It has it's redeeming qualities. For starters I worked my way from front counter through pretty much every position in the store, and ended up marketing manager. Chick-fil-A taught me about work ethic and team work, oh, and how to filet chicken. We weren't located in the highest end neighborhood, so this particular Chick-fil-A gave opportunity to some pretty underprivileged folks, and a pretty diverse demographic. I particularly admired one family that had escaped from some South American dictatorship, and all the women in the family worked at Chick-fil-A. It certainly opened my eyes to a variety of circumstances and what can me accomplished with hard work. Lots of folks have heard of Chick-fil-A's Winshape scholarships, but Chick-fil-A has a college scholarship program available to all employees who work a certain number of hours (I don't remember how many). No, it didn't pay for an entire semester, but every little bit helps.
And let's not forget the best thing about Chick-fil-A. I met my husband when we both worked there in high school, and we had our wedding catered by Chick-fil-A years later (by the same operator we both worked for).
Chick-fil-A's probably the only fast food place I could work at and still eat there. In fact, up until a few years ago I still ate at Chick-fil-A at least once a week. I eat there less now not because of any aversion, but simply because I eat out less than I used to.
So no matter what Dan Cathy says, his principles are not pervasive throughout Chick-fil-A, and what he does with his money is his own business. That being said, Chick-fil-A is a privately held company, and I don't know what percentage Dan owns I don't know, but I'm sure its significant. Some part of every dollar spent there is going to trickle up to him eventually.
Not to long ago I realized that in living in a capitalistic society one of the ways we vote is by what we buy. It's a big part of why I drive the car I drive, and buy the frozen pizza that I buy, and Dan Cathy has the right to vote the way he wants as well. It's up to you to decide whether a vote for scholarships and Sundays off outweighs a vote for Dan and misogyny. Or if you just care about the chicken.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Why would I ever do this again?
I read an article not to long back about how pregnancy affects a woman's brain function, and I can tell you, it most definitely does! For one thing, I seem to get songs stuck in my head and can't get them out for DAYS at a time (as opposed to the normal few hours). But that wasn't the point of the article. It was talking about memory. Apparently pregnant women start losing their memories from the earliest days of pregnancy, and this memory lasts as long as a year past giving birth! Well, I can attest to the first part of this. For months I've been forgetting things, like words I want to use in conversation, with much more than normal frequency. The last couple months, however, I've begun to understand that there's a reason WHY we have this forgetfulness.
BECAUSE IF WE REMEMBERED ALL THIS LATER WE'D NEVER DO IT AGAIN!
I'm not just talking about forgetting labor and delivery, though somehow I think I'll appreciate forgetting that. I'm talking about ALL the things in pregnancy that make us miserable. From the very first symptom (unexplained heartburn for me) to the lower back pain, swelling hands and feet, and just generally miserable uncomfortableness of the third trimester. I'm ready, OH SO READY to not be pregnant anymore. Not ready to be a parent of course, I don't think there's any way to ever be really ready for that, but I'd like to be able to bend over and pick stuff up off the floor, to do yard work again, to be able to walk up the driveway! I'm ready to have this done and over with and be headed toward recovery.
Steve and I had childbirth class yesterday. There was a slide shown that had symptoms that indicate labor is coming within two weeks. I realized I'd had all the symptoms on the page, except one (rupture of membranes). Something tells me I'm not going to make it the three weeks to my due date, and that's ok. I'm ready.
I've started to write a post about late pregnancy several times lately, but with my memory going I don't remember what-all I was planning to write about, so I'll leave you with a little food for thought.
A few years back the small company that my husband and I worked for was evaluating health insurance plans. We had a meeting with an insurance representative to discuss options and benefits for various health conditions we expected to treat. Most questions were about minor surgeries, mental health benefits, and prescription plans, but I asked about how pregnancy was treated, and I'll never forget his response.
"Pregnancy is treated just like any other illness."
Pregnancy? an illness? Sure it's uncomfortable and there are health risks, but in what world to people consciously go out and spend thousands of dollars on infertility treatments attempting to catch an illness? I know women who are DESPERATELY trying to get "sick," and devastated each month when they find out that once again they've failed to contract this disease. I was one of them eight and a half months ago. It makes me question the sanity of our entire healthcare system to know that the continuation of the human race is considered a malady. Though sometimes I look at the state of the world and that makes perfect sense after all.
BECAUSE IF WE REMEMBERED ALL THIS LATER WE'D NEVER DO IT AGAIN!
I'm not just talking about forgetting labor and delivery, though somehow I think I'll appreciate forgetting that. I'm talking about ALL the things in pregnancy that make us miserable. From the very first symptom (unexplained heartburn for me) to the lower back pain, swelling hands and feet, and just generally miserable uncomfortableness of the third trimester. I'm ready, OH SO READY to not be pregnant anymore. Not ready to be a parent of course, I don't think there's any way to ever be really ready for that, but I'd like to be able to bend over and pick stuff up off the floor, to do yard work again, to be able to walk up the driveway! I'm ready to have this done and over with and be headed toward recovery.
Steve and I had childbirth class yesterday. There was a slide shown that had symptoms that indicate labor is coming within two weeks. I realized I'd had all the symptoms on the page, except one (rupture of membranes). Something tells me I'm not going to make it the three weeks to my due date, and that's ok. I'm ready.
I've started to write a post about late pregnancy several times lately, but with my memory going I don't remember what-all I was planning to write about, so I'll leave you with a little food for thought.
A few years back the small company that my husband and I worked for was evaluating health insurance plans. We had a meeting with an insurance representative to discuss options and benefits for various health conditions we expected to treat. Most questions were about minor surgeries, mental health benefits, and prescription plans, but I asked about how pregnancy was treated, and I'll never forget his response.
"Pregnancy is treated just like any other illness."
Pregnancy? an illness? Sure it's uncomfortable and there are health risks, but in what world to people consciously go out and spend thousands of dollars on infertility treatments attempting to catch an illness? I know women who are DESPERATELY trying to get "sick," and devastated each month when they find out that once again they've failed to contract this disease. I was one of them eight and a half months ago. It makes me question the sanity of our entire healthcare system to know that the continuation of the human race is considered a malady. Though sometimes I look at the state of the world and that makes perfect sense after all.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Pregnancy advice, not like most of you care
So I've been thinking lately about pregnancy and how it's affected my life, the ways I was ready for it, and the ways I really REALLY wasn't. It's taught me a lot, and while this post may have a limited demographic for an audience I figured I'd share anyway.
Things to do to prepare for pregnancy:
It may seem like the weirdest bit of advice I can give you, but the thing that has helped me the most during this pregnancy is that I already had a body pillow and was used to sleeping on my side. Oh, I know, all the beauty magazines say to sleep on your back because this prevents wrinkles. But this goes COMPLETELY out the window in your second trimester, and it's best to be used to sleeping this way ahead of time instead of trying to teach yourself a new way to sleep after you're already feeling like an ungainly hippopotamus. The more your stomach's in the way, the more difficult it is to be comfortable, and you're going to be TIRED during your pregnancy, so you don't want to waste time trying to find ways to get comfortable.
Actually I had an aunt give me a body pillow for my high school graduation, and I pretty much can't sleep without it at all anymore, even when I'm not pregnant, especially if I'm away from my husband. If I'm traveling, I do everything I can to fit it into my luggage. All the pregnancy books say sleeping on your side is better for all sorts of reasons. Apparently it helps your kidneys to work more efficiently, which is more important when they're working for two. One book said sleeping on your left side is better than right, but didn't say why. If I had to guess I would think it's because your stomach is on the left, so this helps to prevent heartburn and such. I personally tend to alternate sides through the night (heck I have to get up to use the restroom 2-3 times now, might as well switch sides each time). Hopefully that'll be enough to at least make sure that my wrinkles develop somewhat evenly on both sides.
I haven't gotten to the labor and delivery part yet, though I'll admit the word episiotomy (and the reason some folks say you need one) scares me bat-shit crazy, but I've been told by several practitioners that walking and being in the best possible shape is the best thing you can do to prepare those muscles for what they need to do. So my second best bit of advice is, get used to a regular exercise regimen ahead of time. Oh, I'm not saying you have to be a world class swimmer, or climb Mount Everest, but get into the regular habit of doing something physical before you get pregnant. You're going to be tired during your pregnancy. You'll sleep a LOT (probably more than you ever dreamed possible) so if you wait until after I promise you'll never get started. In fact, you'll probably cut back significantly over the course of your pregnancy. My husband and I worked out regularly with the wii before I was pregnant. Ok,ok, he was a lot more regular than I was, but I would still join him. And we took walks around the neighborhood (about a 2 mile trek) pretty often as well. There's one big hill in our neighborhood that I haven't done since I found out I was pregnant (and I walk a lot slower now than I used to even on the non-hills), like I said you'll cut back, not just because you're tired but as you progress you'll feel less steady on your feet and less comfortable on uneven ground. But if we weren't in the habit of doing something physical before we would NEVER get around to it now.
I'm sure there's a lot more I should have done to prepare. If you want to offer me advice on what's helped you the most (or what I should be doing in my third trimester) I'll be glad to take it (with a grain of salt of course) and let you know how it works for me. If not in this pregnancy, maybe in the next.
Things Pregnancy has taught me:
Just because I was already doing a few things right doesn't mean I had it all together, AT ALL! This pregnancy has taught me a lot that I think I'll take forward into non-pregnant life. Not the least is...
How to Eat.
When you have a strange alien being living in your mid-section for any period of time, this does not go unnoticed by your other internal organs. Your stomach's probably the first to take note. I happened to have been offered a free consultation with a nutritionist shortly before I found out I was pregnant, so by the time my appointment rolled around I had a whole slew of questions to ask, and was in a good mindset to take her advice to heart!
If you're in the habit of skipping breakfast, skimping on lunch, and eating most of your food at dinner that's gonna have to stop with a quickness! One thing I found was that if I let my stomach get to empty, I got nauseous. If I let it get to full, I got nauseous. If I ate anything to rich (I couldn't eat mac and cheese for the first trimester), I got nauseous! If I didn't prep my stomach in the morning, I wouldn't get to keep my breakfast! So I learned to snack on very little bits of food throughout the day. What will work for you will probably be different from what worked for me, but I went through a LOT of ginger ale before figuring out that if I woke up and immediately ate a little bit of fruit, before showering or dressing or anything, then my stomach would be in much better shape by the time I got around to real breakfast. Then I continued to eat tiny amounts at really close intervals throughout the day, a few crackers here, some almonds and dried fruit there. If I brought my lunch I often ate half of it, and then saved the other half for a mid-afternoon snack. Then I'd come home and have a snack before I even started fixing dinner. So even thought the nutritionist said to aim for 6 small meals a day, it was often more like 7-8.
This became less necessity after the morning sickness stage (I think I'm down to 4-5 meals a day) but it still doesn't do well to let yourself get to hungry, or to full for that matter. While I no longer have to completely avoid all-you-can-eat buffets, I still can't take advantage of them like I once could. Grazing all day helps keep your whole digestive tract moving in the right direction, so having nine months to train myself how to eat will (I think) work well for me moving forward, especially as I try to lose the baby weight.
Learn how NOT to worry.
There's actually a stage in pregnancy, early on, that is characterized by a fear that every little twinge is a sign that something is going wrong. Coming on the heels of my first failed pregnancy I spent a LOT of sleepless nights wondering if every little twinge was a sign that I was losing this one as well. After 2 solid weeks of not sleeping through the night a single night, not only was I exhausted but I was a nervous wreck from worrying all the time. I finally had to accept that even if the sky was falling, there was nothing I could do about. It was less a matter of fatalism, and more a matter of self preservation. I mean, pregnancy makes you tired enough on its own! 3-5 hours of being awake and worrying in the middle of the night does not help things at all!
Lastly, Everyone has an opinion, but take it with a grain of salt!
As soon as you start showing people will start coming out of the woodwork to tell you about the best things that you can do for your baby. You'll get advice on the best morning sickness remedies, the best places to shop for maternity clothes, the best way to coordinate your nursery, and where to get the best deals on diapers. Learn to smile and nod, because for every bit of good information you get, there will be at least a dozen piles of complete and utter nonsense! Every pregnancy is different, and you have to do what works best for you! I tried several "morning sickness remedies" that made me more nauseous than when I started. The things that worked the best were often the simplest (plain ginger, lemon drops, and fruit) but these may not be the things that work for you. I've had at least one friend who NOTHING worked for, and she just had to resign herself to three + months of misery with each of her pregnancies. Compared to her, I was just grateful to have kept almost everything that wasn't fish down!
There is also LOTS of baby stuff out there. YOU DO NOT NEED ALL THE STUFF! I had a lady come up to me in the store the other day and tell me about this amazing high chair that she used for her baby from the time he could hold his head up until he was four years old. I went home and looked it up, and it was over $300. IKEA has a perfectly good high chair for $19.99, and why do you need to have a baby at the table when he/she can't even sit up yet? If I want to start training her to sit at the table I'll hold her, or pull the swing up to the table, or put her in the car seat carrier on the table or something. I DON'T NEED A FREAKIN $300 high chair! I found out recently that my college roommate who had twin boys NEVER HAD A HIGH CHAIR and her kids are just fine. They just never really decided they needed one, and her boys are wonderfully well behaved and didn't starve. I have adopted a new mantra. If Abraham Lincoln didn't have it when he was a baby, then I probably don't need it either, because he turned out just fine! Oh, there are exceptions to that. We thoroughly researched car seats, and got one that was a good balance of safety and usability. Of course cars weren't invented when Abraham Lincoln was a child, and neither were dishwashers. But I get all these lists of things that you NEED to have a baby, and I'm telling you my baby doesn't need three types of blankets and a white noise machine. I swear these lists were written by people in marketing, just to get you to buy more stuff.
For heaven's sake, my baby's due in July, if I get to many snuggley sleep warming outfits for her she'll get heat stroke! That's not to say that I'm advocating having a bunch of naked babies running around, but keep your focus on the basic necessities: something to eat, a place to sleep, and maybe something to keep warm (if you're not due in July) and feel free to tell everything else (politely) to stuff it! Oh, and diapers. I've been told we'll go through an inordinate number of diapers!
Keep in mind, my baby's not born yet. This is just the philosophy that's helped me not to wig out up to this point. I'm not there yet, and I'm sure there's a lot that I haven't taken into account, so if you can think of anything else I should be doing, feel free to offer advice. I'll be glad to take it, with a grain (or 1000) of salt, of course.
Things to do to prepare for pregnancy:
It may seem like the weirdest bit of advice I can give you, but the thing that has helped me the most during this pregnancy is that I already had a body pillow and was used to sleeping on my side. Oh, I know, all the beauty magazines say to sleep on your back because this prevents wrinkles. But this goes COMPLETELY out the window in your second trimester, and it's best to be used to sleeping this way ahead of time instead of trying to teach yourself a new way to sleep after you're already feeling like an ungainly hippopotamus. The more your stomach's in the way, the more difficult it is to be comfortable, and you're going to be TIRED during your pregnancy, so you don't want to waste time trying to find ways to get comfortable.
Actually I had an aunt give me a body pillow for my high school graduation, and I pretty much can't sleep without it at all anymore, even when I'm not pregnant, especially if I'm away from my husband. If I'm traveling, I do everything I can to fit it into my luggage. All the pregnancy books say sleeping on your side is better for all sorts of reasons. Apparently it helps your kidneys to work more efficiently, which is more important when they're working for two. One book said sleeping on your left side is better than right, but didn't say why. If I had to guess I would think it's because your stomach is on the left, so this helps to prevent heartburn and such. I personally tend to alternate sides through the night (heck I have to get up to use the restroom 2-3 times now, might as well switch sides each time). Hopefully that'll be enough to at least make sure that my wrinkles develop somewhat evenly on both sides.
I haven't gotten to the labor and delivery part yet, though I'll admit the word episiotomy (and the reason some folks say you need one) scares me bat-shit crazy, but I've been told by several practitioners that walking and being in the best possible shape is the best thing you can do to prepare those muscles for what they need to do. So my second best bit of advice is, get used to a regular exercise regimen ahead of time. Oh, I'm not saying you have to be a world class swimmer, or climb Mount Everest, but get into the regular habit of doing something physical before you get pregnant. You're going to be tired during your pregnancy. You'll sleep a LOT (probably more than you ever dreamed possible) so if you wait until after I promise you'll never get started. In fact, you'll probably cut back significantly over the course of your pregnancy. My husband and I worked out regularly with the wii before I was pregnant. Ok,ok, he was a lot more regular than I was, but I would still join him. And we took walks around the neighborhood (about a 2 mile trek) pretty often as well. There's one big hill in our neighborhood that I haven't done since I found out I was pregnant (and I walk a lot slower now than I used to even on the non-hills), like I said you'll cut back, not just because you're tired but as you progress you'll feel less steady on your feet and less comfortable on uneven ground. But if we weren't in the habit of doing something physical before we would NEVER get around to it now.
I'm sure there's a lot more I should have done to prepare. If you want to offer me advice on what's helped you the most (or what I should be doing in my third trimester) I'll be glad to take it (with a grain of salt of course) and let you know how it works for me. If not in this pregnancy, maybe in the next.
Things Pregnancy has taught me:
Just because I was already doing a few things right doesn't mean I had it all together, AT ALL! This pregnancy has taught me a lot that I think I'll take forward into non-pregnant life. Not the least is...
How to Eat.
When you have a strange alien being living in your mid-section for any period of time, this does not go unnoticed by your other internal organs. Your stomach's probably the first to take note. I happened to have been offered a free consultation with a nutritionist shortly before I found out I was pregnant, so by the time my appointment rolled around I had a whole slew of questions to ask, and was in a good mindset to take her advice to heart!
If you're in the habit of skipping breakfast, skimping on lunch, and eating most of your food at dinner that's gonna have to stop with a quickness! One thing I found was that if I let my stomach get to empty, I got nauseous. If I let it get to full, I got nauseous. If I ate anything to rich (I couldn't eat mac and cheese for the first trimester), I got nauseous! If I didn't prep my stomach in the morning, I wouldn't get to keep my breakfast! So I learned to snack on very little bits of food throughout the day. What will work for you will probably be different from what worked for me, but I went through a LOT of ginger ale before figuring out that if I woke up and immediately ate a little bit of fruit, before showering or dressing or anything, then my stomach would be in much better shape by the time I got around to real breakfast. Then I continued to eat tiny amounts at really close intervals throughout the day, a few crackers here, some almonds and dried fruit there. If I brought my lunch I often ate half of it, and then saved the other half for a mid-afternoon snack. Then I'd come home and have a snack before I even started fixing dinner. So even thought the nutritionist said to aim for 6 small meals a day, it was often more like 7-8.
This became less necessity after the morning sickness stage (I think I'm down to 4-5 meals a day) but it still doesn't do well to let yourself get to hungry, or to full for that matter. While I no longer have to completely avoid all-you-can-eat buffets, I still can't take advantage of them like I once could. Grazing all day helps keep your whole digestive tract moving in the right direction, so having nine months to train myself how to eat will (I think) work well for me moving forward, especially as I try to lose the baby weight.
Learn how NOT to worry.
There's actually a stage in pregnancy, early on, that is characterized by a fear that every little twinge is a sign that something is going wrong. Coming on the heels of my first failed pregnancy I spent a LOT of sleepless nights wondering if every little twinge was a sign that I was losing this one as well. After 2 solid weeks of not sleeping through the night a single night, not only was I exhausted but I was a nervous wreck from worrying all the time. I finally had to accept that even if the sky was falling, there was nothing I could do about. It was less a matter of fatalism, and more a matter of self preservation. I mean, pregnancy makes you tired enough on its own! 3-5 hours of being awake and worrying in the middle of the night does not help things at all!
Lastly, Everyone has an opinion, but take it with a grain of salt!
As soon as you start showing people will start coming out of the woodwork to tell you about the best things that you can do for your baby. You'll get advice on the best morning sickness remedies, the best places to shop for maternity clothes, the best way to coordinate your nursery, and where to get the best deals on diapers. Learn to smile and nod, because for every bit of good information you get, there will be at least a dozen piles of complete and utter nonsense! Every pregnancy is different, and you have to do what works best for you! I tried several "morning sickness remedies" that made me more nauseous than when I started. The things that worked the best were often the simplest (plain ginger, lemon drops, and fruit) but these may not be the things that work for you. I've had at least one friend who NOTHING worked for, and she just had to resign herself to three + months of misery with each of her pregnancies. Compared to her, I was just grateful to have kept almost everything that wasn't fish down!
There is also LOTS of baby stuff out there. YOU DO NOT NEED ALL THE STUFF! I had a lady come up to me in the store the other day and tell me about this amazing high chair that she used for her baby from the time he could hold his head up until he was four years old. I went home and looked it up, and it was over $300. IKEA has a perfectly good high chair for $19.99, and why do you need to have a baby at the table when he/she can't even sit up yet? If I want to start training her to sit at the table I'll hold her, or pull the swing up to the table, or put her in the car seat carrier on the table or something. I DON'T NEED A FREAKIN $300 high chair! I found out recently that my college roommate who had twin boys NEVER HAD A HIGH CHAIR and her kids are just fine. They just never really decided they needed one, and her boys are wonderfully well behaved and didn't starve. I have adopted a new mantra. If Abraham Lincoln didn't have it when he was a baby, then I probably don't need it either, because he turned out just fine! Oh, there are exceptions to that. We thoroughly researched car seats, and got one that was a good balance of safety and usability. Of course cars weren't invented when Abraham Lincoln was a child, and neither were dishwashers. But I get all these lists of things that you NEED to have a baby, and I'm telling you my baby doesn't need three types of blankets and a white noise machine. I swear these lists were written by people in marketing, just to get you to buy more stuff.
For heaven's sake, my baby's due in July, if I get to many snuggley sleep warming outfits for her she'll get heat stroke! That's not to say that I'm advocating having a bunch of naked babies running around, but keep your focus on the basic necessities: something to eat, a place to sleep, and maybe something to keep warm (if you're not due in July) and feel free to tell everything else (politely) to stuff it! Oh, and diapers. I've been told we'll go through an inordinate number of diapers!
Keep in mind, my baby's not born yet. This is just the philosophy that's helped me not to wig out up to this point. I'm not there yet, and I'm sure there's a lot that I haven't taken into account, so if you can think of anything else I should be doing, feel free to offer advice. I'll be glad to take it, with a grain (or 1000) of salt, of course.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Medical Research I'd like to see
Ok, this post is not going to be interesting to most people, but it's the kind of thing that I think of that makes me go Hmmmm.
So I've been thinking about our immune systems, how they work and how they could go haywire. First let me say, I have no background in medicine other than getting sick and going to the doctor, and know very little about biology other than what I learned from my mom or in Biology 101 and 102 in college. This basically means you should ignore everything I say from this point on, because I'm not at all qualified to be asking these questions.
I've been thinking of the nature of several illnesses that are seemingly treated as separate entities, but at a basic level they seem to be caused by immune systems going haywire, and I'm wondering if they could be related. The three illnesses I've notices are allergies, Celiac disease, and type 1 diabetes though there could be others that fit this profile as well.
Allergies can include a wide range of reactions to a wide variety of substances. For instance, I'm allergic to dogs, dust mites, mold, and a variety of pollens goldenrod being the most reaction causing. My reaction to these various allergens is mostly nasal (though I've had hives once) and disgusting but relatively short term (assuming I'm not exposed for long) and can be easily medicated using Claritin (and ten years of allergy shots helped a lot). I had a friend in college who had other various allergies to artificial scents and smoke and these causing her throat to close up and breathing problems. I've also heard a lot recently about allergies to peanuts which can cause anaphylactic shock and death. Allergies have been loosely linked to heredity, for instance my dad has mild hay-fever type allergies. I have similar allergies, though more severe, and my mom and sister don't suffer from any significant allergies that I know of. All of these reactions, though they range greatly in their severity, have one thing in common. They're caused by an inappropriate immune response to a substance that in most people does not cause any immune response at all. Basically exposure to these substances causes our immune systems to go haywire, and the immunologic response itself is what causes illness.
Celiac disease is something I'm less familiar with, though I've read a bit about it and have a cousin who suffers from it. Celiac disease is caused by an intolerance for gluten (found in wheat, barley, rye, and products made from these grains). If you have celiac disease, when your body absorbs gluten your immune system attacks the villi in your small intestines which are what absorbs nutrients in your food. The more gluten you eat the greater the immune response eventually destroying the villi and possibly your ability to absorb nutrients. Damage is irreversible and the only way to keep damage from increasing is to not eat gluten. Celiac disease also tends to run in families though the exact mechanism of heredity is unknown.
The final disease I've been thinking about is type 1 diabetes. I have an uncle and a brother-in-law who suffer from type one diabetes, and though I'm by no means an expert I've seen their management of this disease and how it affects their lives. This type of diabetes is caused by the pancreas either partially or completely failing to produce insulin. Though I suppose it's possible to suffer injury to the pancreas through some other means, the most common cause of pancreatic damage is that for some unknown reason the person's immune system simply attacks the pancreas causing permanent damage. Damage can be partial or complete. Some diabetics still make insulin, just not in sufficient amounts to process a healthy diet, which others no longer make insulin at all. In milder cases a person with diabetes may be able to manage the disease with diet and exercise, but more severe pancreatic damage requires insulin supplements. We know that the risk of developing type 1 diabetes runs in families, but what we don't know is what triggers the autoimmune response that attacks the pancreas in the first place.
If you look at my family as a whole you would think we're generally healthy with no serious diseases running in the family, but looking at the incidence of these three has gotten me wondering lately. Could there be a connection between the autoimmune diseases even though reactions and symptoms are so very different? I wonder if the tendency for autoimmune diseases is genetic, it's just that the immune reaction that causes the disease goes haywire in different ways in different people attacking my uncle's pancreas, my cousin's small intestines, and making me a snot wad. I hear talk of a cure for diabetes quite frequently, but never have I heard of research to cure celiac disease (though I'm sure there's ongoing research) or allergies. I'm wondering what kind of research into autoimmune response in general is going on, and if it's being related to the causes of multiple autoimmune diseases.
Food for further thought: I was a very sickly kid. I caught everything that went around, and strep throat was my Achilles heel (I would get it time after time after time some years). There were years where I missed so much school from being ill that they thought about holding me back, even though my mom would pick up the school work I had missed from my teachers and I would do the work at home. We knew I had allergies, but couldn't find any cause for me to be so susceptible to catching EVERYTHING that went around. My pediatrician finally sent me out for labs to see if I had some sort of autoimmune disease, but they never could find any cause. Eventually I grew out of being so sick, oh I catch the occasional cold or strep, but I'm a generally healthy adult. I think we finally concluded that my immune system just couldn't keep up with my growth rate and it took time to catch up. I now wonder if it was a different problem. Maybe my immune system was so preoccupied with it's inappropriate responses to allergens that it was to overworked to deal with the actual pathogens that came it's way. Could my allergies have actually made me more susceptible to other illnesses growing up? Perhaps it wasn't a matter of growing into my immune system. Perhaps it was the ten years of allergy shots that trained my immune system to be more tolerant of allergens and allowed it to focus on more important things, like the flu.
So I've been thinking about our immune systems, how they work and how they could go haywire. First let me say, I have no background in medicine other than getting sick and going to the doctor, and know very little about biology other than what I learned from my mom or in Biology 101 and 102 in college. This basically means you should ignore everything I say from this point on, because I'm not at all qualified to be asking these questions.
I've been thinking of the nature of several illnesses that are seemingly treated as separate entities, but at a basic level they seem to be caused by immune systems going haywire, and I'm wondering if they could be related. The three illnesses I've notices are allergies, Celiac disease, and type 1 diabetes though there could be others that fit this profile as well.
Allergies can include a wide range of reactions to a wide variety of substances. For instance, I'm allergic to dogs, dust mites, mold, and a variety of pollens goldenrod being the most reaction causing. My reaction to these various allergens is mostly nasal (though I've had hives once) and disgusting but relatively short term (assuming I'm not exposed for long) and can be easily medicated using Claritin (and ten years of allergy shots helped a lot). I had a friend in college who had other various allergies to artificial scents and smoke and these causing her throat to close up and breathing problems. I've also heard a lot recently about allergies to peanuts which can cause anaphylactic shock and death. Allergies have been loosely linked to heredity, for instance my dad has mild hay-fever type allergies. I have similar allergies, though more severe, and my mom and sister don't suffer from any significant allergies that I know of. All of these reactions, though they range greatly in their severity, have one thing in common. They're caused by an inappropriate immune response to a substance that in most people does not cause any immune response at all. Basically exposure to these substances causes our immune systems to go haywire, and the immunologic response itself is what causes illness.
Celiac disease is something I'm less familiar with, though I've read a bit about it and have a cousin who suffers from it. Celiac disease is caused by an intolerance for gluten (found in wheat, barley, rye, and products made from these grains). If you have celiac disease, when your body absorbs gluten your immune system attacks the villi in your small intestines which are what absorbs nutrients in your food. The more gluten you eat the greater the immune response eventually destroying the villi and possibly your ability to absorb nutrients. Damage is irreversible and the only way to keep damage from increasing is to not eat gluten. Celiac disease also tends to run in families though the exact mechanism of heredity is unknown.
The final disease I've been thinking about is type 1 diabetes. I have an uncle and a brother-in-law who suffer from type one diabetes, and though I'm by no means an expert I've seen their management of this disease and how it affects their lives. This type of diabetes is caused by the pancreas either partially or completely failing to produce insulin. Though I suppose it's possible to suffer injury to the pancreas through some other means, the most common cause of pancreatic damage is that for some unknown reason the person's immune system simply attacks the pancreas causing permanent damage. Damage can be partial or complete. Some diabetics still make insulin, just not in sufficient amounts to process a healthy diet, which others no longer make insulin at all. In milder cases a person with diabetes may be able to manage the disease with diet and exercise, but more severe pancreatic damage requires insulin supplements. We know that the risk of developing type 1 diabetes runs in families, but what we don't know is what triggers the autoimmune response that attacks the pancreas in the first place.
If you look at my family as a whole you would think we're generally healthy with no serious diseases running in the family, but looking at the incidence of these three has gotten me wondering lately. Could there be a connection between the autoimmune diseases even though reactions and symptoms are so very different? I wonder if the tendency for autoimmune diseases is genetic, it's just that the immune reaction that causes the disease goes haywire in different ways in different people attacking my uncle's pancreas, my cousin's small intestines, and making me a snot wad. I hear talk of a cure for diabetes quite frequently, but never have I heard of research to cure celiac disease (though I'm sure there's ongoing research) or allergies. I'm wondering what kind of research into autoimmune response in general is going on, and if it's being related to the causes of multiple autoimmune diseases.
Food for further thought: I was a very sickly kid. I caught everything that went around, and strep throat was my Achilles heel (I would get it time after time after time some years). There were years where I missed so much school from being ill that they thought about holding me back, even though my mom would pick up the school work I had missed from my teachers and I would do the work at home. We knew I had allergies, but couldn't find any cause for me to be so susceptible to catching EVERYTHING that went around. My pediatrician finally sent me out for labs to see if I had some sort of autoimmune disease, but they never could find any cause. Eventually I grew out of being so sick, oh I catch the occasional cold or strep, but I'm a generally healthy adult. I think we finally concluded that my immune system just couldn't keep up with my growth rate and it took time to catch up. I now wonder if it was a different problem. Maybe my immune system was so preoccupied with it's inappropriate responses to allergens that it was to overworked to deal with the actual pathogens that came it's way. Could my allergies have actually made me more susceptible to other illnesses growing up? Perhaps it wasn't a matter of growing into my immune system. Perhaps it was the ten years of allergy shots that trained my immune system to be more tolerant of allergens and allowed it to focus on more important things, like the flu.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
My Traveling Red Dress Experience
The history of the dress
I bought this dress a little over seven years ago.
It’s been worn exactly twice, and languishing in my closet the rest of the time. It was bought for me to wear as a bridesmaid in a Christmas wedding, the wedding of two of my best friends who soon started trying to have a family. After a two and a half year struggle with infertility they were finally able to conceive, and now they have two of the most beautiful twin girls I’ve ever seen (saw them just last week).
When my husband and I started our attempts to have a baby they, along with another close friend who has PCOS like me, were my inspiration. From tests to treatments to disappointments they had been through it all before me, and held my hand (literally and figuratively) through it all. Then four years in I started with a new group of fertility specialists and FINALLY got pregnant.
It was the last week in January 2011 that I wore this dress for a second time. I’ve been deeply involved in music from very early on: sang before I could talk, piano lessons from age 3, music major in college, and through it all I’ve had debilitating stage fright. I try over and over with mixed results to force myself to sing/play/speak in public. That January, the same week I started new treatments for what was wrong inside me, I decided to work on the outside as well. America’s Got Tallent auditions came to Atlanta, so inspired by theblogess and her red dress wearing encouragement I went to the auditions, red dress and all. The good news is, I’m not bad enough to make it on TV. The bad news is, I’m not good enough to make it on TV either. But I made it through, and with that boost of confidence I didn’t embarrass myself to badly.
Only two weeks later I found out I was pregnant for the first time. I was overjoyed, only to have a miscarriage three weeks in. It was devastating. I tried to see the good in all this. I mean, at least this proved that I COULD get pregnant, something I hadn’t managed in four years of trying. But to have our hopes raised and dashed in such short order, only to be followed by month after month of disappointment seemed more than I could take. My self-image went to pot! From January to September I had gained nearly 20 lbs. Nothing seemed to matter, not how much I ate or exercised, I’m sure all the crazy hormones I was on didn’t help, so we decided to take the rest of the year off to focus on getting healthy and then decide how to face the new year.
In October I started having horrible lower back and stomach pain, similar to monthly cramps, but instead of a day or so and then my period they went on for nearly a week with no sign of change. I finally realized that they were in the same location as pains I had had during my first pregnancy. Turns out, I managed to conceive, no timing, no drugs, no idea how this happened after almost five years of trying everything under the sun. I spent the next two months terrified to eat the wrong thing, exercise to hard, expose myself to any chemicals, anything at all. I was so terrified of another miscarriage. Add to that terrified to tell people I was pregnant again only to have it end in disappointment again.
The dress moves on
So when Jenny mentioned having a new red dress photo shoot a few days back, http://thebloggess.com/2012/01/the-traveling-red-dress-revisited/, I looked at my body and said, no way am I fitting into that dress. But it got me to wondering, if I can’t wear the dress, who could? I mean, it’s a beautiful dress, and it’s spent the majority of the last seven years crushed in my closet gathering dust. So I offered it out. This was the response I got:
I need this dress. My struggles are with infertility, and weight. I turned 30 back in June, and every day my hopes of becoming a mother just slip further away. My life is consumed by the tremendous booming of my biological clock. We can not get pregnant without IVF, but financially we are fish out of water. Asking us for $15,000.00 is like asking for a million.
I wake up every single day, chocking back the tears and just feeling damn sorry for myself. I can’t seem to shake it. I don’t want to work, or be social, or even cook a meal for my husband. For the life of me, I’m trying to summon the will to do anything-absolutely anything. I haven’t allowed photos of myself to be taken in over 8 years, because I HATE what I see looking back at me. I’ve completely lost my own worth. And I need to find it again. I have to. I have to wear that dress.
I swear only God could have let this person see my little comment way down on theblogess’s website offering the dress. To have this dress offer encouragement to someone else going through the same struggles I’ve been through means so much to me. So as this dress is on its way to its new home in Idaho it goes with all the prayers and blessings and love I can send with it, for the next lady who will wear it, and the next, and the next.
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