Month: January 2012

10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity: Parts 2 & 3 – Appetite and Weight Gain

If you haven’t yet read the intro to this series, you should do so before reading on for some context.

Before continuing, I’d like to reemphasize that my pregnancy was particularly difficult. Every woman’s pregnancy is different; I am just sharing my personal experience. I thought I’d reiterate that point because my mom read my first two posts and is fearful that by my 10th post, all procreation will cease and the human race will die out 🙂 Moving along…

2. Appetite. Most people have heard the stereotype of pregnant women craving pickles in their ice cream. While it’s true some women crave strange combinations, my experience was a complete loss of appetite altogether during the first half of pregnancy – I actually lost weight during my first trimester. Even the smell of most foods/perfumes was enough to get me gagging. Poor Sean, the only food we ate for four months was muffins, pop ’ems, mac ‘n cheese, soup, and rice – a most random combination! I am seriously not exaggerating; we literally rotated between these five items and Sean couldn’t eat much else because I could not stand the smell. This one wasn’t as much a dignity crusher as just straight up frustrating and a little depressing :/

My appetite got better after the first four months (although I continued to experience severe nausea). At that point, I had an onset of very specific, intense cravings that required immediate satisfaction by sending Sean out on midnight runs to the grocery store (which was conveniently located across the street). On one such occasion, I became insatiably thirsty and craved milk. Sean knew the drill and fetched a gallon of milk – and I kid you not – I drank more than 3/4 of it in a matter of a few hours…it was truly remarkable. Other midnight runs included: hot cheetoes, cheese popcorn, funyuns, blueberry bagels/cream cheese, and cake batter ice cream. Obviously eating nutritious food was of top priority to me during my pregnancy. Oh and Sean very kindly gained some sympathy pounds for me…what a sacrificial husband 🙂 Which leads me right into the next subject…

3. Weight gain. Some of the worst (and most common) advice I received while pregnant was: “you should eat whatever you want, you deserve it!” Unfortunately, I took this advice to heart and at each meal/snacking session I emphatically thought to myself: “girl, you are awesome, you’ve earned this!” One particular night I felt especially fond of this deceitful slogan, and by the end of a two-hour TV show, I was appalled to realize I had just consumed an entire bag of funyuns, half a box of cheez-its, a pint of ice cream, three see’s candies, and a snickers. Even Takeru Kobayashi would have been impressed.

The lack of appetite during my first half of pregnancy had limited my weight gain, but let’s just say I more than made up for it during the second half. I had practically been starving the first half, so when I finally got my appetite back, my food intake rivaled that of Michael Phelps and his 12,000 calorie diet. I began eating in this manner partly because I had been deprived of most foods for four months, but also because my body was not responding well to being pregnant, and the reality of feeling like absolute crap 24-7 was leaving me depressed. So with habits like those mentioned in the previous paragraph, I averaged close to 10 lbs. per month (for a total of 45 lbs.)! When I went in for check-ups, my doctor didn’t seem concerned, so I continued to live it up.

What a mistake! News flash – you really don’t need that many extra calories for the baby while pregnant, and the extra weight doesn’t magically disappear once you give birth. You may think this is obvious (I should have too), but one of my less intelligent moments in life occurred six weeks after giving birth at my follow-up Dr.’s appointment. After facing the scale and feeling less than pleased with the result, I asked my doctor in all seriousness: “so, have I already lost all the pregnancy-specific weight I’m going to lose (extra fluids, blood volume, etc.)? like, is that really it??” She of course said yes, and I followed that up with my next brilliant question: “so you mean…I’m actually going to have to work to lose the rest of it???” She looked at me a little funny, again said yes, and I sat there frantically adding numbers in my head with the result leaving me slightly pale – haha! Luckily I’ve been able to lose all the weight (plus some due to nursing), but it took me four months of an agonizingly strict diet and exercise to accomplish. During my next pregnancy (Lord willing), I will most certainly eat very differently!

Even so, I promise you will never catch me in a two-piece bathing suit ever again. Bless his heart, my husband tries to convince me that the plethora of stretch marks I have acquired look like cool fire tattoos on my stomach, (legs, butt, name your body part), but no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to adopt that perspective. The best I can do is consider them well-earned battle scars 🙂 For the record though, I definitely would have developed stretch marks whether I had gained 20 or 60 lbs…it’s just another fun/typical side effect of pregnancy!

Other unfortunate aspects of gaining so much weight during pregnancy included finding myself at Kohl’s twice a week searching for the next clothing size up – even the stretchy maternity clothes were no match for my impressive weight gain marathon. Additionally, each time I asked Sean to help me put on/tie my shoes or hand me my drink while immobilized on my corner of the couch (while ironically watching episodes of the Biggest Loser), my pride was squashed just a little…bit…more.

These two challenges were not of the same “dignity crushing” magnitude as most the others, but I thought I’d give you a break after the last post about constipation 😉

The other 9 ways pregnancy crushed my dignity:

Part 1 – Constipation
Part 4 – Mourning Sickness
Part 5 – Incontinence
Part 6 – Crazy Hormones
Parts 7, 8, & 9 – Pain, Pain, Pain
Part 10, the Pinnacle – Diarrhomit

Also, read about Caleb’s birth:

Caleb’s Birth Story: Rated PG-13 for Language, Nudity, and Drugs 🙂

And here’s the adventures we had after Caleb’s birth:

Caleb’s Afterbirth – the Hospital (Part 1)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – the Neighbs (Part 2)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – Breastfeeding Blues (Part 3)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – Body Slammed (Part 4)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – Am I an Incompetent Parent (Part 5)

10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity: Part 1 – Constipation

If you haven’t yet read the intro to this series, you should do so first before reading on for some context.

Constipation is one of those less talked about, lovely side effects of pregnancy. Due to loss of appetite and nausea, I was very limited on the foods I could handle in the beginning of my pregnancy, so I wasn’t getting nearly as much fiber as I needed. Despite my best efforts to eat a LOT of fiber, going five days without a bowel movement was not unusual. Even with a fiber supplement, two fiber one bars per day, AND trying to eat foods high in fiber, I STILL found myself unbearably constipated for the entire 9 months.

About halfway through my pregnancy, my constipation reached its peak one night after I had gone without a bowel movement for a record breaking seven consecutive days. Sean was on campus that night with students, and I was at home retching on the couch in an incredible amount of pain – my inners felt like they wanted to explode but couldn’t. I finally reached the point of desperation and knew I had to embrace the unthinkable – yes, it is what you are thinking – my very last resort. There is nothing quite as dignity crushing as calling your husband to please come home from work early so he can run to the store and pick up a suppository…and proceed to insert it up your butt. Let’s just say, we got a little bit closer that night 🙂 After a few minutes I felt like I had to poop, and I hurried excitedly into the bathroom. I heard one small bloop, and realized it was just the suppository. Dejectedly, I called again for Sean to reinsert a fresh one, and this time I resolved to wait a little longer. If this doesn’t earn Sean best-husband-of-the-century award, I don’t know what will.

30 minutes elapsed and I was hit by a sudden, intense and overwhelming feeling that made it clear to me the suppository had worked. I had mere moments to respond, so I jumped up from the couch, ran towards the bathroom, and collided at full speed with the bathroom’s door frame which sent me back a good two feet. (Hey – don’t judge; I never could get used to my rapidly growing body). Realizing I had no time to react to the pain of body slamming myself into a wall, I made it to the toilet with no time to spare. I was literally milliseconds from pooping my pants. While this may have made a better story, I’d much prefer to keep my “pooping my pants” story count at 0.

For the remainder of the night (until about 4 am), I had an explosive case of the runs every half hour in which I, once again, found myself running off to the toilet. After the second uncomfortably close call, I determined it best to ditch my pants for the night. If there was previously any doubt as to the effectiveness of suppositories, I will gladly be their poster child.

The other 9 ways pregnancy crushed my dignity:

Parts 2 & 3 – Appetite and Weight Gain
Part 4 – Mourning Sickness
Part 5 – Incontinence
Part 6 – Crazy Hormones
Parts 7, 8, & 9 – Pain, Pain, Pain
Part 10, the Pinnacle – Diarrhomit

Also, read about Caleb’s birth:

Caleb’s Birth Story: Rated PG-13 for Language, Nudity, and Drugs 🙂

And here’s the adventures we had after Caleb’s birth:

Caleb’s Afterbirth – the Hospital (Part 1)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – the Neighbs (Part 2)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – Breastfeeding Blues (Part 3)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – Body Slammed (Part 4)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – Am I an Incompetent Parent (Part 5)

10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity

My pregnancy with Caleb was really hard. It certainly could have been worse, but in my mind there’s no denying that the crappy-ness level of it was approximately an 8.257 out of 10. At my first appointment, the Dr. found an ovarian cyst bigger than my uterus during the ultrasound. This caused concern, because if the cyst were to grow, it could have ruptured and become a life-threatening scenario for both myself and Caleb. Fortunately, with many faithful friends and family in prayer for us, the cyst completely disappeared by my next ultrasound to the shock and amazement of my doctor. Though God miraculously healed my body (praise Him!), it was still a scary situation nonetheless, and from there on out, there seemed to be a continuous stream of challenges throughout my pregnancy.

I am grateful and feel very blessed for the life God gave us, but I don’t believe in sugar coating things and the honest truth is that I was miserable throughout my entire pregnancy (though I would obviously say it was well worth it). Similar to my lack of experiential knowledge going into Caleb’s birth, I also lacked experiential knowledge going into pregnancy. Very few of my friends took the dive into parenting before me, so I really hadn’t heard many stories and wasn’t sure what to expect. Looking back, I think I had a pretty idealistic, naive, and unrealistic expectation of what pregnancy would be like. Both my mother and mother-in-law had wonderful, easy pregnancies, so I just assumed mine would be just like theirs. I guess I just pictured myself as a glowing, joyful, walking among the clouds, cute, only gaining weight in the “right” places, rubbing-my-belly-in-public-all-the-time kind of pregnant woman (you know, how all the gagingly perfect pregnant celebrities look and act). Well, it didn’t take long for my fantasy to get obliterated (I’m talking maybe one week in). 4 Words: Longest. Nine. Months. Ever.

The good thing about adversity is we can learn from it and grow as a person. The even better thing about adversity is we can (sometimes) laugh about it later. And the only thing that’s even more fun than retrospectively laughing at your own adversity, is laughing at someone else’s. That’s why I decided to do a series on our blog entitled “10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity.” In no particular order, here’s to crushing every romantic idea you ever had about pregnancy. Enjoy.

Part 1 – Constipation
Parts 2 & 3 – Appetite and Weight Gain
Part 4 – Mourning Sickness
Part 5 – Incontinence
Part 6 – Crazy Hormones
Parts 7, 8, & 9 – Pain, Pain, Pain
Part 10 – The Pinnacle, Diarrhomit

What is Gossip? Maybe Not What You Think

Gossip is a subject I’ve been meditating on for awhile now. I truly desire to please the Lord and encourage others with my tongue, but there are times I utterly fail. As I began thinking more about gossip, I realized that I couldn’t come up with a great definition for it. I want to address the sin of gossip in my life, but it’s difficult to do so without really even knowing what it is and is not. Dictionary.com wasn’t much help in clarifying it for me, so I took the question to facebook to see how others defined it. I received a lot of interesting responses from people who really put some thought into it, and for the rest of the day I pondered their answers. By the end of the day, I was still questioning the validity of many responses I received, so I decided to do a thorough scriptural study on gossip. It was very interesting and eye-opening for me, and below are the results I came up with. I’ll begin with addressing some of the definitions that people came up with, and why they are actually NOT gossip (at least as a black and white rule):

  • Conjecture 1: It is (always) gossip if the person would not want you to talk about them in that way.
  • Conjecture 2: It is (always) gossip to speak about someone in a way that portrays them poorly.

False: If this is true, then Jesus (a sinless man), would be considered a gossiper. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:27). I highly doubt the pharisees wanted to be spoken of in this way and Jesus was obviously not portraying them in a good light. Also, Jesus wasn’t the only one – Paul and other New Testament writers spoke like this about various people plenty of times in their writings.

  • Conjecture 3: It is (always) gossip if the person you are talking about doesn’t know you are talking about them.

False: Again, Jesus talked poorly about people when they weren’t physically present and were unaware they were being spoken of. “And he cautioned them, saying, ‘Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod'” (Mark 8:15). Paul did the same: “Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message” (2 Tim. 4:14-15).

  • Conjecture 4: It is (always) gossip if it betrays someone’s confidence.

False: For instance, a fellow Christian may tell you in confidence that she is stealing from her company. You directly confront her about it, but she refuses to acknowledge that it is wrong and continues to steal. You are then actually instructed to tell others: “If your brother sins…go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church” (Matt 18:15-17).

  • Conjecture 5: It is (always) gossip if your words are judging another.

False: In 1 Corinthians 5:1-3, Paul says: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife…for though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.” Paul actually states that he has passed judgment on this person. This is a whole other blog topic for another time, but the scriptures tell us not to judge those who do not call themselves Christians, but actually DOES call us to judge those who do.

  • Conjecture 6: It is (always) gossip if you use specific people’s names.

False: Paul reprimanded people by name: “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord” (Phil 4:2). Moreover, whoever told Paul about the quarreling obviously used specific names. Also, Paul wrote to Timothy saying: “for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica” (2 Tim. 4:10).

  • Conjecture 7: It is (always) gossip to share negative information or news about others.

False: 1 Corinthians 1:11 says “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.” Paul then goes on to address the quarreling and divisiveness it’s causing; he does not go on to scold Chloe and her people for gossiping. There are many other examples of people passing negative news between one another in the New Testament that are never condemned as gossip.

  • Conjecture 8: It is (always) gossip if you wouldn’t want what you are saying about another to be said about yourself.

False: See above examples about the pharisees, Alexander the coppersmith, Demas, etc. No one wants negative things said about them, but in those instances, it was not considered gossip.

To be clear, the above conjectures can be gossip, they just don’t work as a definition for it. In my study of the scriptures, the word “slander/slanderer” and “talebearer” were used much more often than the word “gossip,” which I found interesting. As I studied each verse, I came up with four categories that all the verses related to gossip/slander/talebearers fell into. Based upon the Bible, here is what I found gossip to be:

1. Viciously and intentionally using your words to hurt someone or ruin someone’s reputation, whether in public or private (Ex. 23:1, Lev. 19:16, Ps. 34:13, Ps. 101:5, Prov. 11:9, Prov. 12:6, Eph. 4:31, 1 Tim. 3:10-11, 1 Pet. 2:1, 1 Pet. 3:10, James 4:11, Titus 3:2).

2. Making up or spreading false rumors. If you hear something you are not sure is true, confirm its truth before passing it along (Ex. 20:16, Ex. 23:1, Deut. 13:12-15, Ps. 34:13, Eph. 4:25, Eph. 4:31, 1 Tim. 5:13).

3. Revealing something told to you in confidence in order to do damage to the person who told you or to gain favor with your listeners (Prov. 11:13, Prov. 20:19).

4. It is gossip if your heart delights in telling or hearing negative things about others, or in creating quarrels or division among others (Prov. 16:28, Prov. 18:8, Prov. 26:20-21, 1 Tim. 5:13).

One additional category I created consists of verses directing us on the proper use of our tongue:

5. Believers in Christ should use their words to help people move towards Christ, rather than to encourage sin and move them away from Christ. Make a conscious effort to align your speech with God’s heart and to encourage others. Be aware of how powerful your words are (Ps. 19:14, Prov. 22:11, Acts 15:32, Acts 20:2, Eph. 4:29, 1 Pet. 3:10, 1 Pet. 4:11, James 3:5-6).

This was a great study for me and here are some of my notes for practical application:

*As I originally thought, the motive/heart behind your words is ultimately what is important. Always consider if your words will be helpful/neutral/harmful for the listeners, the person being talked about, and yourself. I think Jeanette Spradley really hit it on the nose when she said: “Jesus was always concerned with the heart. One of his greatest commands is to love your neighbor as yourself. Listen to your conscience. When you speak badly to hurt someone it’s wrong, but just like every other biblical principle it’s not black and white. I can feel in my heart when my intentions are wrong.”

*I should be slower to speak, and in general more careful with my words. I’m not the stereotypical “chatter box” woman, but I think I could avoid a lot of gossip if I evaluated my heart before I spoke rather than after. Sometimes I can just blurt something out without really considering what I am saying.

*I should confront people directly more often. This conclusion is a less obvious one, but one that I think would definitely cut down on the amount of gossip I do. For example – if my friend doesn’t follow through on a commitment she made to me and I find that really irritating, I should just go to her and tell her I found it irritating and hurtful, rather than spending an hour telling my husband all about it. I like to think I’m pretty decent at speaking truth (in love) to people about ways they have hurt me/sin in their life, but I still don’t do it nearly enough.

*I should care less about what others think of me. If I did this, I wouldn’t feel the need to gain favor from people by sharing gossip.

*Pray more. Firstly, this would encourage me to talk to God about my grievances with someone rather than gossip about it. Secondly, more prayer would most likely change and soften my heart towards that person.

*Constantly strive to align my heart and mind with God. Again, I like what Jeanette said about this: “I think [gossip] hardens our hearts and makes it so we are much less forgiving and understanding.” I would add that the opposite is true as well – when our heart is hardened and less forgiving, we are more likely to gossip. It can become a vicious cycle. What comes out of my mouth is a reflection of what is in my heart – and too often it is sin and ugliness.

*Be intentional about using my words to build others up more.

*Fixate on the positive – Philippians 4:8 says “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

*It is helpful for me to have a better idea of what gossip really is, because I previously had a tendency to heap unnecessary guilt upon myself for saying things I thought might be gossip, but actually were not.

*I should hold others accountable for the gossip that comes out of their mouths. This actually sounds much more difficult than avoiding gossip myself. I need to be diligent about asking someone to stop gossiping to me if they start to do so, and to make it clear to everyone that I am not interested in listening to gossip.

*I need to take gossip and the things that come out of my mouth much more seriously. There are numerous times I have said something I immediately knew I shouldn’t have said, but just brush it aside like it wasn’t a huge deal. However, Matthew 12:36-37 says “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” James 1:26 also says “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.” Ouch!!! If those verses don’t make me take the topic of gossip seriously, I don’t know what will. I don’t think I should beat myself up over it or become legalistic about it, but I DO think I need to be better in tune with the weight and potential consequences of my words. After all, since I call myself a follower of Christ, I am a representative of Him and I must take this role incredibly seriously.

Wow, guess I learned a lot and I’ll continue to meditate on these things and hopefully grow to gossip less!! I know this was long, as most my posts are, but if you made it this far, hopefully you learned something too. If there is anything in this post you disagree with or have additional thoughts on, I’d love for you to comment – it would help me grow and I welcome (friendly/loving) disagreement on my blog. In case your brain feels completely overloaded and about to explode at this point, here is a silly/fun/entertaining video on gossip to revive you:

Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus Part 2

Yesterday I posted a video that’s been going viral on facebook called “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus.” I liked the video, and it was clear to me that the artist was not speaking about religion in general, but false religion, empty religion, legalism, hypocrisy, and rule-following. However, later in the day, I read an interesting article critiquing the video and how some of the words/points the artist made could be confusing to some. I think the article had many interesting points, so if you are a Christian and have seen the video, it would be good to read. I believe it is important to think critically about these things and be careful about what we post so as not to send any misguiding messages. I still like the video and its message, but I want to emphasize he is speaking about false religion. Here is a link to the blog:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2012/01/13/does-jesus-hate-religion-kinda-sorta-not-really/

Here is another link to later correspondence between the artist in the video and the writer of the blog, which I thought was an awesome representation of how believers in Christ can be gracious with, yet challenging to one another:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2012/01/14/following-up-on-the-jesusreligion-video/

A Culture of Isolation?

Two weekends ago we made Christmas cookies for our neighbs. That’s neighbors in Santa Barbara language. By the way – complete tangent – I JUST discovered that the term “the hood” comes from the word neighborhood…my annoying habit of shortening words led me to this eye-opening revelation. Genius! Oh also, did you know that the medicine “tums” is the baby talk way of saying tummy? Just discovered that one too.

Refocusing. We really desire to build relationships with our neighbors because we think it’s important to find ways to be a blessing to those around us. We thought cookies would accomplish that plus be a great way to introduce ourselves in our new neighborhood (we just bought a house and moved in in September). As we were passing out the cookies, it became clear that none of them knew each other (or just barely). They were all friendly to us, but we were dumbfounded that some of these people have been here for 18 years and don’t know any of their neighbors. Sean and I both knew our neighbors growing up…we were even close enough with some of them to invite them to our wedding. It also seems to stand in stark contrast to stories I’ve heard our elders tell of neighborhood camaraderie and ready willingness to lend a hand (particularly in hard times). In fact, the dictionary literally defines neighbor as “a person who shows kindliness or helpfulness towards his or her fellow humans.”

I’m not saying I’m immune…my first thought when we run out of eggs is “aw crap, we have to run to the store,” and never “hey we should go ask our neighbor if we can have an egg.” And I’ll be honest, most of the time I don’t even answer our door when someone knocks because I just assume it’s UPS dropping off a box or a solicitor. Anyways, I don’t really have anything profound to say…I just think it’s interesting and the whole cookie experience made me think. My hope is that over time we will be able to build relationships with our neighbors and love on them however we can – cookies, bbq’s, practical helpfulness, etc. Perhaps we will be able to change the culture of isolation in our hood to a culture of connection. I think it’s pretty important since after all, Jesus told us to love our neighbor and we might as well start with those physically close! 🙂

I’d love to hear your thoughts/ideas on the subject. Why do you think people have become more isolated from even those they live right next to? Do you have relationships with your neighbors? How do you cultivate those relationships? How have you blessed them?

Caleb’s Birth Story: Rated PG-13 for Language, Nudity, and Drugs :)

We realize this is 8 months after the fact, but better late than never right!? Before giving birth, we didn’t read many birth stories (not sure why, I guess they just weren’t in any books we read), but in retrospect we wish we had so we would have had a better idea as to what to expect (and not just medical facts or what they tell you in the birthing classes). It would have been nice to read more stories from different people’s perspectives (especially friends), and their particular experience of such a crazy and wonderful event, so we decided to write this out for our friends who will experience this one day or for those who are just simply interested (and for our own reading pleasure in the years to come). Oh and disclaimer, we’re really just kidding about the title of this post, but if the thought of reading the intimate details of a birth makes you want to poke your own eyes out, you should probably read no further.

About 8 days before Caleb was born (16 days before my due date), I began noticing various signs that I would be going into labor soon, so we had a good feeling Caleb would be born early. Then on April 25th (9 days before my due date), I woke up at 4 am with regular contractions. They weren’t incredibly strong but they were 3-5 minutes apart, so we went to the hospital as we were instructed to do when contractions reached that frequency. When we got to Long Beach Memorial, I was placed in a triage room and hooked up to the baby monitoring strap thing to measure my contractions and monitor Caleb’s heart rate. It was confirmed that my contractions were consistently close together, but I was only 2 cm dilated (you need to be 10 cm dilated before you are able to push). When they asked me how much pain I was in on a scale of 1-10, I said “2 or 3,” and they sort of laughed at me and said: “most women who come in and are admitted say 9 or 10.”

Because I wasn’t very dilated, they had me walk the halls for an hour to see if that would accelerate labor (they said they didn’t like to admit women who weren’t at least 4 or 5 cm dilated). The walking didn’t help, and I was subsequently sent back home with the instruction to come back when I was in “more pain.” We were a bit frustrated by this, because that seemed like such a vague instruction – we felt confused and worried that we wouldn’t really know when it was time to come back. They also told us that Caleb would be coming “soon”…and when we asked them to clarify what they meant by “soon,” they wouldn’t directly answer so we had no idea if that meant a few hours, or a few weeks. Really not what a super hormonal and highly uncomfortable pregnant woman wants to hear.

So we went back home at about 10 am and tried in vain to get some sleep (we were just too on edge). My contractions actually petered out throughout the day, so at 11:30 pm, we got ready for bed. Just as I was about to fall asleep at midnight, the contractions started up again. They were stronger than before, but now totally irregular. This continued until 2 am. We had no idea what we were supposed to do since we were under the impression we weren’t supposed to go to the hospital until the contractions were strong AND regular. Finally I was in so much pain I was groaning aloud, and I had Sean call the hospital to ask for advice. They told him we should come in. I was sure they said that to everyone who called to avoid liability, so I decided to wait longer.

At about 2:45 am I couldn’t take it anymore, and we decided to just go to the hospital despite the irregular contractions. I was brought once again to the “triage” area and hooked up to the monitoring device. By this time, my contractions were extremely painful and had become regular. I thought for sure I was 4 or 5 cm dilated, but when the nurse checked me I was only 3 cm dilated. The nurse communicated very little with me and said she had to go call my OB doctor before a decision whether or not to admit me could be made. Once she left, I literally burst out into tears. I was in SO much pain and was convinced they were going to send me back home. All I kept thinking was, “my contractions are now strong AND regular…how the heck am I going to know when to come back in?? I am going to have this baby in my apartment!!”

The nurse was gone for what seemed like eternity (probably more like an hour), and finally returned to check my monitor and give me the very unsatisfying news: “I’m still waiting to hear back from your doctor,” and left again within a couple minutes. Unfortunately the maternity ward was incredibly busy that day (April 26th), so I didn’t get much face time with the nurses to ask many questions or get much explained to me, which was frustrating and difficult. By this point my contractions were becoming so strong that I had literally reached a state of delusion. My vision was really blurry and I remember feeling like I was in a dream. Everything seemed to be moving reeeeaaaally slow and I had trouble processing what was happening. I’ll let Sean take over here because honestly, I can hardly remember what happened from about 4 am to 7:30 am.

Sean:
One of the most difficult parts of that morning was that the few bits of information we received seemed to be in contradiction. They would say, “wow, your contractions look ‘textbook’ and strong!”, but then they would check her and she was not dilating any further. So it seemed like a huge relief when they finally informed us at about 7 am that she would be admitted and they were locating the next available room. She had already been in labor for 7 hours, so I was hoping it would be just a few more minutes until they got her out of that cramped little temporary room. After another agonizing 45 minutes, I began to think they had forgotten us. At about that time, Melissa leaned over and clutched my hand, her eyes looking directly into mine yet focused 1000 yards behind me, and simply whispered “Help me.” I went to find out why we were still in the waiting room, and discovered that the nurses were having a shift change which was causing a delay in finding a room for us…our timing was just perfect I guess (plus every single birthing room was in use that day). When the new nurse came in, she started prepping Melissa for an I.V. Unfortunately the valve on that I.V. was faulty and when she stuck the needle into Melissa’s wrist, a voluminous stream of blood began draining onto the floor. The nurse hadn’t noticed, Melissa was on another planet, and I was in too much of a stupor to do anything but point and say “uuuuhhhhmmmm….uuhhhmmmmm….” as I watched a 1 foot diameter blood pool collect by the nurse’s foot. My last image of that little room was a shaking, yelling Melissa being loaded into a wheelchair while someone got on a radio and said, “bio hazard cleanup needed in room 9.”

Back to Melissa. It always seemed silly to me to have a birth plan (particularly with my first child) since I had no idea how the birth would go down (i.e. what it really feels like, if there would be complications, etc.), so before going to the hospital we printed out our “birth plan” which had one sentence on it: “Just get the baby out” – a joke for the nurses. Of course I educated myself on the options I would have/the obstacles I might face and what I *thought* I would want to do, but I made sure to keep an open mind and remain flexible so I would be prepared to handle anything that happened. Getting an epidural was one of the options I hadn’t made a decision on before going into labor. At 3 am when I first got to the hospital, I was still unsure if I wanted one, but by 7 am it was the fastest and easiest decision I’ve ever made in my life (and I’m terrible at making decisions). Ha!

I think there are a lot of strong opinions about epidurals out there, and mine is this: if I would normally get anesthesia for any other major medical event (pulling wisdom teeth, surgery, etc.) why would I NOT get it during the most painful experience of my life to date?? Currently, there is no empirical evidence to support the theory that it is harmful to the baby nor that it increases the chance of cesarean delivery, so it just doesn’t make sense to me to take such an opposed stance (however, I do agree that like any drug, there is always the chance of side effects). It also seems that the whole epidural issue can breed a weird sense of pride and competition like the female version of “how many weights can you lift? I bet I can lift more.” Additionally, the only women I personally know of who gave birth without an epidural had relatively short labors; all others opted for one. I WILL say this though – if you had a labor longer than 10 hours with no epidural, I will bow down and kiss your feet because that is just ridiculous. Anyway, I digress…my point is that I think you can get an epidural and still be considered a “good mom” 🙂

So after starting labor at midnight, I got an epidural at about 8 am. As the nurse was getting ready to move me from the triage room to the birthing room, she spent time making sure my hospital gown was completely covering me and I remember thinking to myself “I don’t $*%#@ care if you wheel me down this hall butt NAKED…just get me the epidural NOW!” LOL! Once in the birthing room it took them three tries to get me to round my back so they could administer the drugs. They asked me to arch forwards and I arched backwards. They asked me to go the opposite direction…I arched backwards again…I was slightly confused and out of it 🙂 The epidural took effect pretty quickly and it was a huge relief. I was finally able to relax and rest (in a very loose sense of the term). My mom and younger sister showed up at this point and it was great to have them there with us for support and distraction.

From 8 am on it was a slow but steady progression. I gradually dilated more and my doctor broke my water for me in the afternoon. (Contrary to popular belief, labor does NOT typically begin with the water breaking). It was painless, but pretty weird. There was a LOT more fluid than I thought there would be. There was a huge gush at first and it continued to leak over the next hour or so. Also, like I mentioned earlier, it was insanely busy in the maternity ward that day so I sat in soaked sheets for an hour before they were changed 🙁

Caleb kept falling asleep during labor (seriously???) which they could tell by his heart rate, so I had to wear an oxygen mask for most of labor (which I hated…it was so annoying, I kept asking if I could take it off). They also kept making me turn on my side to wake Caleb up, which was extremely painful and uncomfortable because of the severe pelvic pain I had developed in my third trimester of pregnancy. At one point (maybe around 3 pm), my epidural began wearing off rather quickly so I buzzed my nurse like she asked me to before pushing the button for more drugs to be released. She didn’t respond and it took 30 minutes for the nurse at the front desk to finally come back and assist me (she was the ONLY nurse available in the whole place at that point…ridiculous!) I actually really liked the nurse assigned to me, I just didn’t see much of her :/

By about 5:30 pm, I was feeling the urge to push and they stopped administering the epidural so that I would be able to feel the pushing contractions. It was exciting I had reached that point but I was also super exhausted. They had me push for 10 seconds in sets of 3, which I did for about an hour and 15 minutes (Caleb was born at 6:47 pm). Near the end of the pushing, I was so exhausted and worked up that I began hyperventilating. My nurse had to yell at me to stop because it would have caused problems if I continued. Thankfully, right as I was thinking “oh my gosh, I legitimately do not have the energy to push one more time,” Caleb popped out. Like literally, he popped out super fast. I see now why Dr.’s are somewhat paranoid about dropping the baby…once the head comes out they are like slimy little rockets! Haha!

Caleb Reese
Caleb Reese
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Born 4/26/11 at 6:47 pm

…And I got a 2nd degree perineal tear. Not gonna go into details, just look it up on google if you don’t know what I’m talking about and have the stomach for it 🙂 Apparently this is an incredibly common occurrence, which is a bummer. After the nurses did a few things with Caleb and my Dr. was stitching me up, they put Caleb on my chest for his first opportunity to nurse which he wanted absolutely no part of. I held Caleb for awhile and then Sean, my mom, and my sister got a turn to hold him. Then he was off to the nursery to get washed up and other random things I can’t remember now.

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I’ve heard many people describe the first time they hold their child as this incredible moment that is breathtaking, spiritual, and somehow magical. You know, the typical “as I gazed into my child’s eyes (eyelids?) I had this overwhelming sense of how much God loves me because of how much I love this child and this is just so amazing, incredible, etc…” I’m not ridiculing you if this is how you felt, I’m just saying my mind wasn’t even close to having such deep thoughts at that moment. The extent of my profound ponderings was “wow, how amazing is it that I just pushed such a large object out of such a small opening!”

Of course all the more meaningful thoughts came later, but honestly at the time I had reached unparalleled exhaustion and felt like total crap (though I was relieved he was finally out). Reference below picture (ha!):

I had slept 4 terrible, restless hours in the previous 2 1/2 days, labored for 19 hours, was carrying a lot of extra weight, just got a rip stitched up, was bleeding profusely, and had to pee like crazy. As far as I know my birth experience was really nothing out of the ordinary or especially awful – it really was pretty standard, so my hunch is that people who were capable of a deep moment after birth are either projecting later feelings back onto that time, were delirious from the drugs/exhaustion, or were the dad 🙂 Also on a random tangent, I have yet to understand how some women are able to post a picture to facebook 5 minutes after giving birth looking chipper, with their hair and makeup perfectly done (you know what I’m talking about, can I get an amen!?) I mean, mad props if that is you, but the absolute last thing I wanted to do after giving birth was take a picture period nor did I care one ounce how I looked.

Just in case there is any question at this point, I do love my son and in retrospect Caleb’s birth experience was incredible; those are just the honest and raw emotions I experienced at the time. Like I said, Caleb’s birth wasn’t unusual or particularly crazy, I just wanted to document the details because it is special to me 🙂

What happened next:

Caleb’s Afterbirth – the Hospital (Part 1)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – the Neighbs (Part 2)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – Breastfeeding Blues (Part 3)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – Body Slammed (Part 4)
Caleb’s Afterbirth – Am I an Incompetent Parent (Part 5)

And here’s the 10 ways pregnancy crushed my dignity:

Part 1 – Constipation
Parts 2 & 3 – Appetite and Weight Gain
Part 4 – Mourning Sickness
Part 5 – Incontinence
Part 6 – Crazy Hormones
Parts 7, 8, & 9 – Pain, Pain, Pain
Part 10, the Pinnacle – Diarrhomit