Doula in training

So this happened.

Last spring, during a Google-search rampage initiated by an Oh My God, What Am I Doing With My Life moment, I came across an announcement for a Birth Doula Training Workshop in St. Louis.  

As some may recall, I had a doula when I gave birth to Will almost 4 years ago.  I can't even imagine how completely botched and horrible the experience would have become if she had not been there.  Every single day that has passed since then, I still take a moment to be thankful for her.

Becoming a doula myself was not something I had ever considered.  In fact, I had to take a step back from anything birth or pregnancy related for quite some time (say, 4 years) because these things triggered a flood of negative emotions in me.  Hyperemesis, the near-disaster that was his birth, and the resultant breastfeeding hell that made me wonder what I'd done to deserve such punishment.  We all survived by the very skin of our teeth.

But when I saw the announcement for the workshop-- a DONA approved doula training that included a childbirth education component required for certification--I knew this was where I belonged.  

The workshop took place over 3 days last weekend.  It was intense.  Intense.  30 hours of birth, birth, birth.  The other 20 or so participants in the course now feel like members of my own family.  Most of what I learned wasn't entirely new to me-- it was more like reawakening muscle memory of my once-extensive command of the vocabulary of birth.  It made me appreciate my own doula even more, after trying on her shoes and walking around for a while.

To me, birth is a big, big deal, and after this workshop, I definitely feel prepared to support other women through the process.  In a strange sort of way, my many years of running marathons and ultra marathons, as well as crewing for Rob during his races, has provided me a remarkable preparation for becoming a doula.  Let me be clear: giving birth is nothing like running a marathon or even an ultra, but the kind of support you provide in both situations is actually quite similar.  What you have to do is make someone believe that they can do something, and then they go ahead and do it.  I think I'm pretty good at that.  I got Rob to go up the volcano at Fuego y Agua this year.  I can make a laboring woman believe in herself.

At the moment, I have no real leads on potential clients, but I certainly hope that I have the chance to attend births someday.  While I am gaining experience, I think I would be happy doing community service work for free.  For example, working with incarcerated women who are transported to the hospital from their facility.  Teen moms.  Women who do not speak English.  Low income women who want to have a doula but don't have the means to pay for one.

If anyone out there knows of someone who might be interested in having me attend her birth, please feel free to send her my way!

Thanks for reading.

I am awesome at meeting famous people.

I may have mentioned Amy Ray on this blog before.

As in, I gave birth listening to Amy Ray.*

Or, Last weekend I ran anothermarathon listening to Amy Ray.

I always considered myself an Indigo Girls fan, at least from the moment when my freshman year roommate put in Rites of Passage and said "Hey, Mel, listen to this" (it was their cover of "Romeo and Juliet").  But when Amy Ray came out with her first solo album in 2001, that was life changing.  I don't know.  I just really, really, really liked it.

The culmination of many years of being a fan reached its peak last month, when Amy Ray came to St. Louis and did a show at the Old Rock House.

It was amazing.  Oh dear god, it was amazing.

 

I love how happy she looks in this picture

 

The Old Rock House is a pretty small venue (not that I actually know that much about venues), and after the show, Rob and me and my friend who had come with us were hanging around for a while.  Then all of a sudden, Amy Ray walked back into the room.  She just started hanging out too-- talking to fans, signing autographs, etc.  The thing is, nobody seemed particularly concerned or excited.  It was all really laid back.  Except for me--  I reacted like one of those girls from the 1960's who was seeing the Beatles for the first time.

Image from http://oysters4breakfast.blogspot.com/2010/12/birds-of-day-girls-of-beatlemania.html

In the midst of all the hyperventilating and fainting I was doing, Rob was all, "You should go up to her and talk to her."

And I was like, Talk?!  How can I just go up and talk to Amy Ray?

One thing about Rob is that even though he is often quiet in most other life situations, he is really, really good at talking to rock stars.

So Rob and my friend each took one of my arms and marched me over to Amy Ray.

She smiled at us and said, "Hey, I'm Amy."

Rob turned on his rock star super speaking ability and said something to the effect of, "Hi, this is Melissa and she's a really big fan.  Your music has gotten her through a lot.  She gave birth and runs marathons listening to your music."

And then Amy Ray shook my hand.  She was like, "Whoa.  You run marathons?  That's cool."

And I was all Oh my god, you're Amy Ray.  My teeth were chattering and I had no control over the limbs of my body.

Also, I think she may have been weirded out by the giving birth statement.

(I don't blame her, that is actually kind of weird).

Even so, she put her arm around me, and Rob took a picture.

 

It has been almost a whole month, and I am *still* recovering from this moment.

How do you even recover from meeting Amy Ray??

Well, you don't I guess.

But one way you can try is to go out and meet Gloria Steinem in the same week.

It was graduation on campus, and Gloria Steinem was set to receive an honorary degree.  She was giving a commencement address, and also, the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department was hosting a special, invitation only, meet and greet with her the day before graduation.

I was in the office on the morning of Gloria Steinem's arrival on campus, talking with some coworkers about how I really admired her and how I thought it would be really cool to hear her speak.  One of the faculty members, who happens to have a joint appointment in the WGS department was also talking to us, and she was like, "We'll see what I can do."

Well, she came down to my office later in the day and asked me if I would be interested in going to the Gloria Steinem Meet and Greet that afternoon as her +1.

I was in!!!!!

The only problem was, I didn't think I was dressed for the occasion.

I was wearing a teal sleeveless shirt that my mom gave me for my 26th birthday (in 2005) and a pair of black pants that I have had since before graduating college.  This just didn't seem fancy enough.  The invitation to the event was very fancy.  Wine and cheese was to be served.  I thought everyone would be dressed in formal wear.

I almost called Rob and asked him to bring me my new black dress (that I got at the Scholar Shop for $12), but then I was like, wait, Gloria Steinem is a feminist.  I shouldn't wear a dress.  I should ask him to bring me my black blazer.

I didn't end up asking him to bring any of these things, because my date told me that she thought I was dressed appropriately, and besides that, Gloria Steinem wouldn't care what I was wearing.

She was right.  My outfit was actually perfect for the occasion, and Gloria Steinem's talk was fantastic!

She is so inspirational!  And brilliant.  Everything she said was just about the smartest thing I've ever heard.

The talk was unstructured; it was mainly an opportunity for students to ask her questions.  Many of them asked her questions relating to "What would you advise us to do after graduation?"  Her response was something to the effect of, "You know what I think you should do?  I think you should find that one thing that you are so passionate about, that you love so deeply, that you'll do it and forget to eat and sleep because you love it so much.  I think you should do that, and do it well."

There's my problem in life.

I either haven't found the thing I am that passionate about, or, I don't do it well enough that I could live off of it.  (Writing).

Me with my pal, Gloria Steinem.  My date to the event was sitting on my other side and is not pictured.

 

I think what I'd like to do is get a book deal.  Writing Amy Ray's biography.  I bet I would be good at that.  But I'll have to get better at talking rock stars, otherwise, Rob will have to ask all the questions.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

*N.B.: Will arrived early to this world and I was unprepared to give birth (I did not have an iPod handy for some reason), so what I actually listened to was Rob singing "Dairy Queen" and "Driver Education" (which I guess are both technically Indigo Girls songs, but were written by Amy Ray).  While this didn't make it into my "official" birth story, I am pretty sure that it did happen.

 

The Teal Nightmare

A week ago I ran the St. Louis Rock and Roll Marathon.  It was my 11th marathon overall-- my 3rd since Will was born and my first since he stopped nursing.  I trained pretty well for it, considering that I'm also working full time, caring for a small child, writing a novel, creating a new framework of Alouatta ontogeny, folding laundry, scrubbing toilets, and cooking everybody's dinner in all my spare time.

Weather on race was perfect, and other than being chronically sleep deprived, everything was great.  I dressed all in teal, as you can see below.  I don't know why.  I didn't really plan it.  I centered my wardrobe around those shorts, just because they are really comfortable.  It turned out that the race number was teal too, which I didn't even find out until the day before when I picked up my packet.  Before the race I even wore a teal fleece, which was also unplanned.  It is just the oldest fleece I own and the one I would be the least sad to lose if I ended up just throwing it down on the side of the road.  I felt like a veritable teal nightmare.

Rob's parents visited us that weekend, and they stayed at home with Will.  Rob and I took the metro downtown before dawn, which was nice and also kind of fun.  The train was packed with runners, and I made friends with a nice lady who was running the half.  We arrived downtown by about 6:30 and then stood out there in the semi-cold for an hour waiting for the start.

 

 

 

I ran pretty slow in the first miles, kind of just because I had to.  They did a "wave start" (I was in the 6th corral), which probably helped a lot with the conjestion, but it was still fairly congested.  After the first couple miles went by way too slowly, I got a little panicky and started frantically trying to pick up the pace.  The thing is, it actually felt pretty difficult to run any faster, which should have been a bad sign.  You don't want to feel tired at mile 4 of a marathon.  I ignored it and ran faster.  This is a terrible strategy, I know, but it actually worked for me really well at the Indianapolis Marathon in 2008.  I thought I would be okay.  I ran a couple of 8:15's and then kept it steady at 8:35 for a while.  I thought I could pull off a 3:45 finish.

There were hills.  I didn't worry about them.  I just ran.  About mile 8 I thought, something doesn't feel right.  I'd brought my phone with me and had an "Emergency Playlist" of Amy Ray songs to get me through if something terrible happened.  I never ever ever listen to music when I'm running a marathon, but at mile 8, I turned it on.  I thought, I'll just listen to this for a mile or two and then I'll feel better.

Around mile 9, I saw Rob again.  I smiled and gave him a thumbs up, all the while thinking, why am I giving him a thumbs up?  I feel terrible.  I kept running.  I ate some Clif Shot blocks and took some Endurolytes.  I drank water at every aid station.  The energy replacement drink was "Cytomax," which tasted like Lemon Pledge.  Seriously.  As a public service announcement to race directors: Just do Gatorade.  Always.  I guess it is probably more complicated, involving things like sponsorship and money and whatnot, but Cytomax and Melissa did not mix.  I know, I know.  I should have realized Cytomax was the energy drink at this marathon and gone out and found somewhere to buy it so that I could get used to running with it.  But seriously, I just could not deal with that.  Too many loads of laundry to fold, too many crock pots of chili to make.  I can buy Gatorade at Schucks, so that is what I train with.  During the marathon, I got horrible stomach cramps, so I stopped taking any Cytomax.  I thought, I've got my Clif Shot blocks and Endurolytes... I'll be okay."

There were more hills.  There was a big hill at mile 14.  I'd been running 8:35's but I dropped to over 9:00.  The 3:50 pace group passed me.  I remained convinced that their pace leader was running way too fast and they were ahead of schedule.  I picked up my pace again but felt completely dead and I still couldn't catch them.  I then convinced myself that it was actually the 3:40 pace group that had passed me.  (It wasn't).

I felt more and more terrible.  I took an orange slice from somebody in the crowd.  It tasted good, but I felt no better.  I didn't understand why I just had no energy... I'd eaten a whole pack of Shot Blocks by this point (200 calories)-- which is more than I've eaten during some entire marathons.  I wasn't drinking electrolytes, but I had taken a couple of Endurolytes, which I thought would be equivalent.

At mile 16, I saw Rob again.  I'd been listening to Beauty Queen Sister for a while on repeat by this point, completely ignoring all the cover bands out there on the course who were playing things like Sweet Home Alabama. I must have looked bad.  Rob stayed with me for the next 10 miles, riding off to the side on his Bike Friday.

He said he had a banana and did I want it.  I said yes.  I couldn't even say thank you when he handed it to me.  I took a bite and knew it was a mistake.  It felt kind of like when I threw up kale, except with banana instead.  I'd had enough calories, I didn't think I needed to eat, so why did I feel this way?

There were more hills, and a hairpin turn around a cone in Carondelet Park.  I couldn't handle anything but water at the aid stations, and most of the time I ended up coughing up the water because for some reason my throat wasn't working right.  Around mile 18, they were handing out salt packets and I took one.  I've never done that at a marathon before.  I thought, surely, this will help.

At mile 19, I thought I would call my mom.  I tried to get the voice activation thing working on my phone but for some reason it didn't, and I was too exhausted to mess with it.  I just kept listening to Amy Ray, and I kept looking at Rob on his bike.  I thought, I didn't put Dairy Queen on this playlist.  How could I have forgotten?  It was the song I gave birth to.

There were more hills.

Rob said, "You can finish it in 3:55."  But that was only if I could hold my current pace.

At some point after mile 20, there were a couple guys on the road who cheered for me, and said, "You're doing great, young lady!"

I actually laughed, and I said to Rob, "They think I'm young." **

There was more of a crowd as I got closer to the finish.  During the last couple of miles, I remember a short haired lady along the sideline who looked right at me and cheered and gave me too thumbs up.  I started crying and whispered, "Thank you."

Finally I could see the finish.  I was running exactly 10:00 minute pace, which would put me there at exactly 3:56. I thought, if I can just pick it up a little, even just a tiny bit... I can cross the finish line while it is still in the 3:55's.  Even if it is 3:55:59.  I gave it everything I had.  I gave it to glory.  I crossed the finish line at... exactly 3:56:00.  I have no idea what my "official" chip time is.  I've never bothered to look it up.  I don't really care, I guess.

It was an ugly, ugly, marathon for me.  Not my ugliest by far, but definitely in the top 3 of Melissa's Ugly Marathons.  Afterwards, I was so nauseated I felt like I was having a bout of hyperemesis.  We took the metro home and it was all I could do not to puke.  I was pretty sure that I was Mostly Dead.

We got back home (we have to walk up a big hill to get from the metro station to our house).  I think Will may have been napping, or maybe I got to talk to him for a little while, I honestly can't remember.  I was Mostly Dead.  I had made a crock pot of chili the night before, so that everybody would have something to eat for lunch, but I couldn't really eat it.  I tried to tell myself, I was really sick after Indianapolis last year, but I started feeling better after I actually ate food.  I managed a few bites, but felt even worse.  I got myself upstairs and slept (emesis bowl in hand) for maybe 20 minutes or 2 hours, I can't remember which.  Eventually I realized I was going to live, and I was able to eat again and started feeling better.

I really have no complaints about the Rock and Roll Marathon or the race course or organization, per se.  A marathon is a marathon.  It is going to be hard, it is going to be ugly.  There is really no way around that.  The course was definitely hilly, but how do you have a flat marathon in St. Louis?  You don't.  I thought I would be okay with it, considering that I live here and this is where I do all of my training runs.  Rob pointed out that I run a lot in Forest Park, which is essentially flat.  This could be my problem.  I consider Forest Park to be fairly hilly... at least, with a few gently rolling hills.  I thought, training there would be better than nothing.  I'm not sure it was.  I don't know.  There is a giant hill right by my house, that I have to run up everytime I run.  I thought that counted for something.  I guess not.  I've never survived a hilly marathon very well.

I had to work until 8pm the next day, and that kind of sucked, but not as bad as I'd feared.

I am about 99% certain that I am going to run the Go! St. Louis marathon in April.  The website describes the course as challenging and hilly, so I am probably out of my mind.  But here is my rationale:  I'm not going to do well in a spring marathon, period.  It is just too hard to train in the winter when you've got 2 months of ice on the ground and it gets dark at 4:30pm.  So I'm going to suck it up, use it as a training run to keep myself in shape, and finally (hopefully) get my redemption with my 13th marathon next fall, a year from now.  Maybe then I will have finished my novel and the howler chapter, and we can hire someone to deal with our laundry and crock pots of chili so that I can get more rest.  Maybe it will be easier to travel somewhere and run something flat and fast again.  We'll see.

Thanks for reading.

 

** This references an Arrested Development quote, but I can't find a good website with the line.

2^5

Well, I am 2^5 old today, or more plainly spoken:  32.  Wait, is that right?  I was born in 1979.  You do the math.

For the last several years, my birthdays have become increasingly chaotic.  It has not always been of my choosing.  Last year, most likely in tears, I recall thinking that if I lived to see 32, all I wanted was for NOTHING happen on my birthday.

Let's see if I can recount some of the craziness of the past several years:

25th birthday, 2004:  On a camping trip in Appalachia with Rob.  We may be smiling in the pictures, but we had just had our 2nd fight ever.

26th birthday, 2005: In Managua waiting to fly home and vowing never to return to Nicaragua again.

27th birthday, 2006: Having returned to Nicaragua, I was in a hospital in Moyogalpa that had no toilet paper.  Someone down the hall was either giving birth or having her leg amputated without anesthesia.  I was extremely ill, but Rob was the one who was being treated.

28th birthday, 2007: Moved into our house in Urbana, having just left Eduardo in Nicaragua.  I was supposed to be all happy to be back in the US, I guess, but instead it kind of felt like I'd been forced to reach into my chest cavity, extract my heart, and throw it to the sharks in Lake Nicaragua.

29th birthday 2008: On a boat in Lake Nicaragua, looking for Eduardo.

30th birthday, 2009:  Had given birth to my one and only child  2 days prior.  Will wouldn't stop crying, ever, not even for a second.  An asshole pediatrician at the hospital told me I was starving Will to death by trying to breastfeed him and that I would have to give him formula because everybody on the planet would die if he lost any more weight.  I have never met anyone more insulting, ignorant, and arrogant than that worthless sack of shit.  He actually referred to the nurses on staff as "the girls" and he told me that giving Will formula wouldhelp my milk come in.  Luckily I was smart enough not to listen to him, but even so, my 30th birthday was the worst day of my entire life.

31st birthday, 2010: Moved to St. Louis with approximately 3 weeks notice.  Started a new job and put my son in daycare for the first time ever (prior to this we'd never been apart for more than a few hours).  We didn't have a place to live yet so we stayed in a hotel for 2 weeks.  Also, my grandmother was dying and passed away just before my first day of my new job.  My family held off the funeral till the weekend (because I could not take any time off of work at that point), so that I could come home and give the eulogy.

Well, I guess my 32nd birthday is about to draw to a close and thankfully there has been no tragic event.  I got to go on a long run this morning, and afterwards, Rob and I biked over to a park with Will to meet some friends.  Will enjoyed the playground, and I had a chance to chat with some of my favorite yoga moms (one who now lives in St. Louis, and another who had come down to visit).  Although I have been feeling ridiculously awful for the past several days (out of control exhaustion), I got a second wind after a 20 minute power nap this afternoon.  Then this evening, we hung out with some neighbors until Will threw a fit and we had to take him home.  He wouldn't eat dinner (as per usual), but I soothed myself by having a piece of leftover birthday cake from his party yesterday.  I got lots of phone calls, emails, cards, texts, tweets, and Facebook messages from everybody wishing me a happy birthday.  It was really nice!

Tomorrow I resume my career-- going back to work full time after about 6 weeks off this summer.  A little stressed out by that.  A lot stressed out by that.  I still have to write the howler paper for Mt's edited volume, and I don't know when I am going to find the time to do that.  Hoping all goes well.

Ms. Kenna

Last week my sister gave birth to a healthy and beautiful baby girl.  I am so happy for her that whenever I stop to think about it, I spontaneously burst into tears.  Having a baby is always a thing of great emotion, but my sister has been through more than anyone ought to have to go through for her children.

Thanks for reading.

Show me the midwives, Missouri

First of all, no, I am not pregnant, and no I do not plan on becoming pregnant anytime before, say, they find a cure for hyperemesis gravidarum.

That being said, before I accepted this position in St. Louis, I did a quick little google search on the status of midwifery in Missouri. Again, this was not because I ever want to have another baby, but rather, because I just don't want to live in one of those states where midwifery is illegal. What I found was that until 2008, all midwives were illegal in Missouri. Even Certified Nurse Midwives. Can that really be true? Well, I read it on the internet, so who knows. But still, what the hell, Missouri.

Apparently in 2008, Missouri got its head out of its ass and Legalized It. CNMs, CPMs, the whole she-bang. Birth centers and even homebirth is now legal in Missouri. I was all, sign me up. Coming from Illinois, (where birth centers and homebirth midwives are illegal), this was quite a concept. If I ever lost my mind and decided to have another baby, it was nice to know I could do it at home.

So here I am, living in Missouri. Where midwifery, homebirth, and birth centers are legal, and my insurance even covers all these things. Great, right? Not so. Midwifery may be legal nowadays, but there are no midwives. Seriously. I've googled, I've read the phone book, I've googled some more, and I've studied the practitioners covered by my insurance plan. Although my plan specifically states that it covers all forms of midwives, birth centers, and home births, when I do a search for a midwife in my area, I get nothing. And birth centers? Ha. According to the internet, there is one birth center in all of Missouri. And it's in Kansas City, not St. Louis.

I keep thinking... I must be doing something wrong. I must not be typing the right search term into google when I am looking for Certified Nurse Midwives in St. Louis. The midwives (or at least Ob/Gyn practices that have a midwife on staff) must be listed somewhere in the 10,000 page St. Louis area phone book that I somehow missed.

The whole thing has become more urgent because I have mastitis, again. I've had at least 15 plugged ducts in the same exact area since Will was born, and I've had mastitis now 3 times. Since I don't have any kind of doctor here yet, I have no idea what to do but it seems obvious that this is not going away on its own. Of course I know that. It's mastitis. The affected area is red and as hard as concrete; yes, I know I'm supposed to keep nursing through it, but it hurts so bad each time that it brings me to tears. (On the plus side, Will is thrilled that I've offered to nurse him multiple times throughout the day; he would never dream of turning down an opportunity to nurse). No amount of Tylenol is making my fever go down. Everything hurts. My eyelashes hurt. My teeth hurt. My knees hurt. The stupid insurance company has never sent me my insurance card, and their website is "down" and not letting me print out a temporary ID. If I live through the night, I may try to go to a "Take Care" clinic a couple miles south of here, but I have no idea if they deal with mastitis or not and what they will do if I show up without an insurance card. Can they look me up? Hopefully. Oh, and get this, Will had diarrhea and projectile vomiting today, for the first time ever in his life. I am hoping it was just a fluke, but if he wakes up in the morning and seems sick, then obviously I will have to take care of him first. At least I have found a pediatrician for him, so hopefully they'll be able to work him in if he really needs to be seen. But the larger problem with all of this is that my employer has this policy wherein new employees cannot take any sick or vacation time for the first 6 months of their employment. So somehow I've got to (maybe) get both Will and me to a doctor and recover from mastitis all without taking any time off work.

I feel like that point during labor, when I asked my doula when my midwife would be arriving. My doula had the unfortunate task of telling me that my midwife was not on call that night and the OB in charge of the practice (who I had met only 1 time) would be "delivering" the baby. I became hysterical, beating my fist on the wall of the shower and crying out, "I WANT CAROL!" until I was too exhausted to continue. In retrospect, that is just the tiniest bit funny, but at the time, it certainly wasn't.

At any rate, if anyone out there finds this and has any insight into the midwife situation in Missouri/St. Louis, please do let me know. And if anyone can recommend someone to go to for non-pregnancy related female reproductive care, I am all ears. Ideally some place where I don't have to take 3 interstates to get there. Thanks.

One year later

Has it really been a year since Will was born?

Almost.

I've had a lot of time by this point to reflect on his birth. I am so thankful for how it all turned out, but going through it was definitely awful. Awful, awful, awful. I looked back on the birth so negatively for such a long time. And I felt so mad, because I had done everything right. I had done everything Ina May's Guide to Childbirth said to do. Why had it ended up being such a thing of terror instead a thing of joy? Why had it left me feeling so defeated instead of elated? I was angry at the hippies in the book for describing contractions as "waves" or "rushes." Those words just didn't do it justice. It was more like a tsunami or being run over by a train but somehow managing to stay alive only to feel the impact over and over again. I think Rob is still sort of scarred from the experience, and he wasn't even the one directly going through it.

I never want to be pregnant again. I never want to go back to that horrible, horrible dark, place of never not feeling like I was going to vomit, of never having any relief from the nausea, not even for a moment. And I never want to have a newborn again. Not one that cries and cries and cries all the time. Nobody understands how much he cried (and still cries), not even Rob. I was the one who was home alone with him, all day, every day. I don't know what was wrong with him. I guess I never will.

But the thing is, I think I could give birth again. I want a do-over. Even though going through the experience was completely awful and terrifying at the time, I can look back on it now and think of it as truly amazing. I still kind of can't believe that I did it. Nothing in life will ever, ever compare. Everything else is just so pale. Instead of remembering the terrible, defeating moments when I was sure they were going to cut me open before I could muster, "I do not consent," I remember the hugely immense power of the contractions. Power like a volcano erupting or like an earthquake ripping the earth in two. I remember how some sort of primal instinct took over, how I intuitively felt the need to stay vertical and how I knew how to hum, moan, breathe through the contractions. I remember how I let go, just completely surrendered to it. Each contraction felt like being thrown from a cliff, hitting the water some thousand miles below and feeling it break every bone in your body. But you just don't fight it, don't struggle against it. Keep your shoulders and jaw relaxed and you'll float up to the top and get a breath of fresh air before the whole thing happens all over again. And again and again. How you manage to live through it is a mystery. At some point during transition, during a deathly calm between contractions, I remember looking at my doula through heavily lidded eyes, and whispering, "I can do this. I can do this." And I remember a look of pride washed over her and she said, "You are doing this." I was. I had to. The only way out is through.

Thanks for reading.

Did I ever really have a low milk supply?

Some researchers are conducting a survey of nursing mothers who have used Domperidone to increase milk supply.

I took the survey, and it reminded me of something I've been wondering for quite a while now: Did I ever really have a low milk supply?

A couple months ago, the local La Leche League put me in contact with another area mother who was experiencing low milk supply issues and taking domperidone for it. She wanted to talk to someone who had been through it and was on the other side, and I was happy to provide any help/moral support that I could. I kept asking the other mom how she knew that she had low milk supply... did her baby cry all the time? Because Will's crying was really the only thing we were going on the whole time I was dealing with this. But no, the other mother said her baby did not cry all the time and was generally pretty easy-going. I think she said that the baby's poor weight gain was the main issue.

For us, Will was a bit slow to gain weight, but he never had dangerously low weight gain or weight loss. During the worst of it, he had a week where he only gained 4.5 ounces. Because I was nursing him almost constantly (as much as 12 hours some days), and he cried whenever he wasn't nursing, the lactation consultant told me she suspected I had a milk supply issue. She thought he must be doing a lot of non-nutritive suckling, otherwise he should be gaining loads of weight considering the amount of time he spent nursing.

Domperidone was the last resort after a long road of trying everything. After a couple weeks of taking it, I definitely felt like I had plenty of milk, and that was a huge relief. But the thing is, Will's crying didn't end. It didn't seem to be colic or acid reflux or an allergy to something in my diet. He just cried. Whenever he wasn't nursing, he cried.

Feeding him was very stressful. Whenever he nursed, he would fall asleep. Maybe after a half an hour or so, I'd unlatch him and he would wake up and cry. Once, I resolved to just let him nurse until he unlatched on his own. I sat there for a solid hour and a half, letting him nurse and nurse (while he was asleep). Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and unlatched him. He woke up immediately, gave me a look of pure contempt, threw his head back, and wailed. He didn't care whether or not there was milk coming out. He just wanted to nurse and nurse and nurse and nurse.

Something I really didn't get at the beginning was the whole concept of the let-down. I guess I thought that the milk was supposed to be shooting out in a constant stream for 10 or 15 minutes straight. But it wasn't that way for me... is it that way for anybody? I'd look at the clock once I started to feel the milk coming out. Most of the time the let-down would only last a minute or 2 before it subsided. Every week I'd be back in the lactation consultant's office, saying, "Milk only comes out of me for a minute at a time... he's not getting enough to eat." I don't know, maybe I am a freak and that's not how it's supposed to be, but that is pretty much the way it is now: several let-downs of milk, interspersed with periods when no milk is coming out.

I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say here, and it's getting very late. I guess I probably did have some milk supply issues and Domperidone did help. But knowing what I know now, I don't think milk supply was the root of the problem. I think Will is just a very needy baby, and for whatever reason, he spent the first 6 or so months of his life crying. I am very glad we are past that.

I still would like to know if hyperemesis or the GBS antibiotics (that I apparently had a severe reaction to), or the freakishly unexplained blood pressure spike I experienced after labor may have had any impact on my milk supply.

Oh, and one more thing, I think Domperidone made me dizzy, even though that wasn't really supposed to be a side effect.

What is the matter with me? Morning will be here before I know it, I've got to get to bed.

Skinny jeans

I know all of you out there reading this lost all your pregnancy weight and fit back into all your old clothes within a week or two weeks or a day or whatever, but I didn't. I stayed fat for a long time. I didn't gain a tremendous amount of weight while I was pregnant (27 pounds), but I held onto it. Actually, that's not quite true. I lost almost all of it while giving birth, most likely because I didn't eat for about 3 days and threw up 2-3 times per contraction (a side effect of the antibiotics they "had" to give me for GBS+). When I came home from the hospital and stepped on the scale to find that I'd lost 20 pounds, I thought, losing this pregnancy weight is going to be a piece of cake.

Speaking of cake.

Even vegan cake will make you fat if you eat enough of it. And I did. I actually gained weight after Will was born and while I was exclusively breastfeeding him. This is probably because my impressive weight loss during his birth was mainly due to dehydration. But also, I became an eating machine after Will was born. My lactation consultant thought I was suspiciously skinny and advised me to eat, eat, eat, in order to increase my milk supply. And I did. For 9 months I'd been constantly puking or feeling like I would puke, and even though the nausea persisted for about 3-4 months after Will was born (actually I am still nauseated sometimes, but not like I was while pregnant), I could eat a lot more things. Like tortilla chips (no salsa though, until just recently), and peanut butter. And cake.

I felt really bad about myself about being so fat, but apparently, not bad enough to stop eating. Plus, having a snack was sometimes really effective at drowning out Will's constant crying. It was like, "As long as I am eating these vegan brownies, I cannot hear you cry!!"

Within the past few months though, I've finally noticed that my clothes are fitting me better, and in some cases, are even loose. Around the time of the marathon, I cautiously stepped on the scale and found that I was only a few pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight (which was Freakishly Thin) and am actually a few pounds less than what I weighed in high school and after we came back from a year in Nicaragua (when I had taken a hiatus from running).

A couple days ago, I was going through a bin of old clothes that I packed away during my pregnancy and by this point had pretty much given up hope of ever wearing again. I put on a skirt that had been tight on me when we came home from Nicaragua and it was pleasantly loose! And then I came across my Skinny Jeans. The last time I had worn them was when I was skeletal and 14 weeks pregnant and so sick that hurling myself into an abyss seemed like a good idea. With much trepidation, I tried on the jeans, not expecting them to go on past the knee.

And they fit! Comfortably! Still a bit tighter on me than back in my glory days, but I can definitely wear them.

So there you have it. I have finally lost almost all of my pregnancy weight and am back in my skinny jeans. And it "only" took 10 months. And I didn't do anything special. Unless you count becoming a vegan (again) and running a marathon.

When Will was the size of a lemon and mama was skinny

Well rounded, but in skinny jeans again

Morning breath

When Will was first born, the thing that I most remember was how familiar he seemed to me. It really felt like I had known him forever. I couldn't stop looking at him because he was so beautiful. Every little thing about him was absolutely beautiful and perfect.

In all my staring at him, there were many things I noticed about him, of course. For instance, he had pointy toenails. I thought they were lovely. I thought maybe pointy toenails were a general newborn baby thing. Six weeks later when Cara and John had their baby, I went to visit them and snuck a peak at Baby G's toenails. Not pointy. Hmm.

Will also was constantly sticking his fingers in his eyes. Seriously, unless we had him tightly swaddled, he would shoot his little hands up to his face and stick his fingers right into his eyeballs. I was so afraid he would poke his eyes out.

During one of those early days, when everything was new and hazy and kind of terrible but also kind of wonderful, I remember that Rob and I stood looking at Will after he had fallen asleep one evening. We had no idea how much time we had before he would wake and the screaming would begin again. We whispered to each other about the things we loved about Will. His knees, his nose, his mouth, and yes, his pointy toenails. "I like his breath," Rob added to the list. He probably doesn't remember saying that, but he did. And Will did have really great breath. So sweet.

About a month ago, we'd been at the Gutzvilles for John's birthday. Will ate his avocado and fruit and Cheerios for dinner, and then he fell asleep on our way home from the party. He actually stayed asleep as Rob unhooked him from the carseat and carried him upstairs to his crib. That had never happened before. I thought he'd wake up pretty soon-- he hadn't nursed before falling asleep. But he slept and slept. Finally he woke up around 3 in the morning, suddenly furious that he had been put to bed in his clothes and without a final drink of milk. I hurried across the hall to his room and lifted him out of his crib. As I held him close and he breathed on me, I noticed for the first time ever, he had morning breath!

Sweet breath or not, Will is great. Today he even took a nap in his crib-- something I haven't been able to get him to do for more than 2 months. It was nice that I could get some things done, but there was a part of me that missed just holding him in my arms while he slept.

Thanks for reading.

Pomp and Circumstance

Today was graduation. Since I skipped my college graduation some umpty-dozen years ago to run a 5K and then get my wedding gown altered, I had decided I'd actually go to the one for my PhD. The whole thing almost fell apart though. Remember how I mentioned in my last post that I had a plugged duct ? ("It feels like I'm getting a plugged duct again, so hopefully that will work itself out without getting too painful.") Unfortunately, as soon as I wrote that, it ended up getting worse. I felt awful and achy and started running a fever. You guessed it: mastitis. Luckily, I got in to see my midwife, and she prescribed me some antibiotics. I started feeling better right away.

I was still kind of run down, but not bad enough to miss graduation. I walked over to the line up this morning, because I'm Melissa and I have this thing against driving places less than 2 miles away. It was a little bit weird to step out of my front door and walk through the neighborhood wearing full academic regalia. Plus, I had decided to enliven the whole garish orange and blue ensemble by wearing these shoes. But whatever. This is Urbana. I'm sure they've seen it before.

Since graduates had to be there before guests, Rob and Will left home a bit later. The ceremony was so crowded that as I filed in, I couldn't see them anywhere. PhD candidates sat in the very front row, so I couldn't see the audience at all. A few times during the ceremony I heard a baby cry, but it was never Will. Then shortly before the end (when PhD candidates were actually announced), I heard a very loud BA-BA-BA-BA-BAAAAAAA," and I thought that's my boy!. Sure enough, it was.

I saw Rob and Will step forward to take picture as I went up to the stage. The announcer called my name, putting a "Dr." in front of it. Then SL "hooded" me, which I guess means I now officially have my PhD.

I am kind of paranoid that SL will read this or that it will somehow get back to him, but I do just have to say that he has been a really great thesis advisor these past umpteen years. I remember being so scared to tell him that I was pregnant, for fear that he would think that I had flaked out and would bail on the program so close to finishing. But not at all. He was amazingly supportive and encouraging throughout the whole thing. In fact, getting an email from him telling me that my thesis was defensible is probably what sent me into labor. And just moments after Will was born, I told Rob, "Text SL" (although I think Rob passed out from exhaustion before he could do so). I think it is great that SL rode his bike to graduation today and that he attended the ceremony wearing Asics running shoes. In a strange way, it made me feel like everything was right with the world when the festivities ended and I saw SL sling his cap and gown over one arm, hop on his bike, and ride away one-handed.

Rob, Will, and I walked home together. Will, of course, had refused to eat his cereal or take a bottle of milk after I'd had to leave in the morning, so he was very hungry. I stopped to nurse him on the way home.

I know that getting my PhD is supposed to be a huge accomplishment and whatnot, but really, the biggest accomplishment of all is being Will's mother.

Thanks for reading.

Transformation

A while back, I entered a writing contest being hosted by Rixa of Stand and Deliver, one of my favorite blogs. The topic was, "Becoming a parent, becoming transformed." When I first saw the contest announcement, I thought, "Hm, writing. That's something I like to do," but I had no intention of entering. What in the world would I say?

I couldn't get the contest out of my mind though. Not because I intended to enter, but instead because it made me think about think about how becoming a mother had changed me. I hadn't had that transformative experience the natural childbirth books seemed to promise. It wasn't like in the movies or on TV shows when the moment of birth is marked with shouts of joy. By the time Will entered this world, I was just so, so exhausted. And I was emotionally and physically drained from 9 months of constant nausea. The days immediately following Will's birth only got worse. The nausea did not go away, and we didn't have that perfect breastfeeding relationship the natural birth books had led me to believe would be the end result of a drug-free birth. It didn't get better for a long, long time.

I suppose these experiences have transformed me, but somehow the whole thing just seemed larger than that and much more deeply rooted. I began to wonder how I had gotten here, from someone who never planned on having children, to someone who practically felt like Mother Earth herself. I distinctly remembered having a conversation with a female colleague the first time I was in Nicaragua doing research. "That whole biological clock thing," she had said, "never happened to me." "Yeah," I agreed, "Me neither."

So what had happened?!

And the answer, of course, was Eduardo.

My transformation had occurred before getting pregnant, before hyperemesis, before labor, before birth. I felt like I finally had something to write about.

So I sat down at the computer while nursing Will and typed out the story one-handed. I kept it for many days, in fact, until the day before the contest deadline. Until the moment I entered, I wasn't sure that I was actually going to do it. I didn't think what I'd written was all that good. I didn't think it was going to win any prizes. I think I just wanted somebody else to read the story of Eduardo and what he had meant to me.

I sort of forgot about the whole thing. Then, this week, I received a message from Rixa herself, notifying me that I was a finalist. I was completely floored. And then, come to find out, I won. I still can't believe it.

All 5 of you who normally read my blog already know the story of Eduardo. But if you want to read it again, you can find it on Stand and Deliver.

Thanks for reading.

Illinois Marathon report (finally)

May 1st was the 2nd Annual Illinois Marathon. Being that I was pregnant and puking last year, I only managed the 5K. This year, when Boston filled up before I had registered, I immediately set my sites on the Illinois Marathon, right here in Champaign-Urbana. In many ways, I was more excited for Illinois than I had been for Boston. After all, it would be the first time I would be able to sleep in my own bed at my own house the night before a marathon.

Although I started running again 8 days after Will was born, training did not go smoothly. I had a newborn baby, for crying out loud. I defended, revised, and deposited my dissertation in the middle of all of this. There was snow and ice everywhere for the first couple months of training. And it was cold. I had injury after injury. Will started refusing to take a bottle, which made my long runs stressful.

A fast time was never my goal for the marathon. I just wanted to cross the finish line in one piece. Based on the pace I was able to maintain during training runs, I thought maybe I could do it in about 5 hours. And I sincerely hoped Will would take a bottle that day.

By the time the marathon rolled around, I was seriously burned out, and not just from taper madness. We have had a recent death in the family, and everything following that was (and continues to be) so, so awful. I wasn't sure if I would or even could still run the marathon after all of that. I finally decided to go ahead and do it because there was no real reason for me not to, but I just could have cared less about the marathon by this point.

The night before the race, I was only able to sleep about 4 hours, and it wasn't because of Will. He sleeps pretty well for the most part now. I was just too worked up in grief and sadness (I'm in the anger stage now, which is actually better in many ways than just being sad about it) and couldn't get my mind to shut down.

I felt like absolute and complete hell as Rob and I got ourselves up and around in the balmy pre-dawn of marathon day. In spite of the awful sadness in the week leading up to the marathon, I'd still been hungry and able to eat pretty well (I guess lactating and long-distance running will do that to you), but on the morning of the race, my stomach was completely uncooperative.

Rob's parents arrived to babysit while I was in the middle of a crying jag in the bathroom. We had about a half an hour before we had to leave the house, and Will was still sleeping. I finally woke him up to nurse him before we left, and he was most unhappy with me. He was groggy and kept falling back asleep while I was trying to nurse him.

Rob and I left the house and I felt completely unprepared to be running a marathon. I finally forced down a Clif Bar but felt for all the world like it would come back up again. I had grabbed a banana before we left the house, but I couldn't make myself eat it. I carried it around for a long time, thinking my stomach would feel better, but it didn't. I ended up running with the banana for the first 3 miles of the race and then ditching it along the side of the road. What I wished I'd brought with me was some water. I was really thirsty before the race began, which even in my hellish state I knew was a bad sign. By 7am, it was hot (how hot I don't know.... I was warm standing outside in just shorts and tank top) and ridiculously humid.

I wished Rob good luck and went to the start line, positioning myself around the 4:30 pace group and wondering if that was a huge mistake (i.e., was it too fast for me?). I stood there and waited forever. I wished that I wasn't so boxed in and could have found my friend Aimee who was running the half. I had lined up near where I thought she would be, hoping we could run together before the half marathon and full split off. But with 13,000 other runners out there, I never did find her.

The 5K runners were supposed to start at 7am, but they were delayed by around 10 minutes for some reason. Their delay translated into an even further delay for the marathon and half runners. By 20 minutes past start time, I was growing ridiculously impatient and frustrated. Every minute they delayed the start was another minute I had to spend away from my baby! Didn't these morons realize that? (I don't really think that the people in charge of the race are morons, but at the time I sure did.)

Finally without any warning, we were off. Rob (who was at the front of the pack) said they actually said "go" or something like that, but way back in 4:30-land I heard nothing other than the conversation of the two girls next to me who were doing the half and both had worn make up and were wondering if their mascara would run (to their credit, I'm sure they were really nice, I was just in no mood). Anyway, at first I wasn't sure if the race had actually started, because we were just sort of meandering forward in a slow walk, then stopping for several seconds, then meandering forward again, but eventually we reached the start line and could pick it up to a slow jog.

It was really crowded at first, and I had a lot of trouble getting into my own pace. In addition, I was very thirsty. I thought, surely there will be a water stop soon. I was running near the right side of the road and saw a hash mark with a number 1 in a circle, and I thought... was that really the Mile 1 marker? No other marking? I wouldn't have even seen it if I'd been in the center of the street. Surely there would be water soon. My mouth felt like there was cotton in it. Along Green Street, there was an area littered with used, empty paper cups-- remnants of some water station. Had there been a water station there for the 5K, and did they remove it for the marathon? Why on earth would they have done that?

Still running, still thirsty and still no water. Out of campus town now. A family had set up a small card table with a pitcher of water and some paper cups outside their house. I momentarily paused, thinking it was an official water stop, but then realized it was too small. Dozens of other runners had stopped there though. I went on past, thinking there was too little water for all those people and sure that there must be an actual water stop up ahead. I was momentarily distracted by a little boy who had come outside of his house and was playing the clarinet. Cute.

Finally I could see a water stop approaching. We had to be almost to the 3 mile mark now. And volunteers were handing out... empty paper cups. "Sorry, we're out of water," they were saying. "You've got to be kidding," I mumbled through parched lips. Just up ahead there were more volunteers, pouring water into our paper cups from a pitcher. I wondered how a single pitcher of water was going to fill the paper cups of hundreds of runners around me and how I would ever manage to get any. I had to wait in a jumbled line of thirsty runners, but eventually got a half a cup full of luke-warm water.

The next couple of water stops were the same... out of water, waiting in line to get a small amount. I was actually getting really panicky. The temperature was supposed to be in the high 70's by the end of the race, and I had been thirsty before it had even begun. I realized, this must be what it's like in the back of the pack. I sincerely hoped that Rob had avoided these problems, way out in front. He has a lot of trouble in the heat, and I knew he really, really needed to stay hydrated.

After the first 3 water stops, I never had another problem throughout the rest of the race. And the miles were marked really well after that too. By about Mile 7, they had gatorade as well, and at each station I took a full cup of water and a full cup of gatorade. I ended up staying really well hydrated, probably better than any other marathon I've done.

At Mile 8 we entered Meadowbrook Park, a location where I have run hundreds upon hundreds of miles in my life. It got really congested again. We'd gone from having the width of the street to run on to the width of a sidewalk. It was a little ridiculous. I'd been running 9:45 to 10-minute miles, but my first mile in the park was 10:30. After that I ran on the grass bordering the sidewalk, so as to not be way-layed by runners even slower than myself. Seriously, if they include Meadowbrook again next year, I think it would be better to do it after the half and full marathon runners split off from each other. Way out front where Rob was, he said he didn't have a problem, so I guess it was more of an issue for us in the back of the pack.

Near Mile 11, I got to see Will, which was by far the highlight of the marathon. He was out in his stroller with Rob's parents to watch the race. I stopped long enough to kiss him and make sure he was okay, and then was on my way. Seeing him bolstered me enough to run faster for the next several miles and ignore the fact that we had left the tree-lined shady streets of Urbana and were running in the direct sun.

Despite the heat and sun, I felt great (actually a lot better than I had at the beginning of the race). At some point in there I caught up with and then passed the 4:20 pace group, and I wondered if I could hang on. By Mile 18, I was starting to feel a little tired. Around Mile 19, we entered the one part of the course I had not run on before. I was still okay, but feeling just the slightest indication that I was beginning to enter the crazy zone. I had my cell phone with me and thought, hmmm, maybe I'll call my mom just to say hi. So I did. My mom thought it was a riot that I had called her while I was running the marathon. Pretty soon I was passing Mile 20 and then 21 and still had not gone over the edge into the crazies. My mom went to her computer and pulled up a map of the course so she could follow along.

I'd only meant to say hi, but by the time I was at Mile 23, my mom said we might as well keep talking until I crossed the finish line. She thought that would be cool to hear all the cheering as I ran through the stadium where the race ended. The course was fairly sparse by that time, but the other runners around me must have thought I was talking to myself and was crazy. I didn't really care though. I knew it was probably using up energy to talk (even though my mom was mainly talking/cheering for me and I was just listening), but for some reason I felt like that was what I needed to get to the end.

In retrospect, I feel really bad for keeping my mom on the phone with me for the last 7 miles of the marathon because I'm sure she had other things to do. It really helped get me to the end though. I never felt bad; I never had any of those ugly terrifying miles when you just want to lay down on the side of the road and cry. Somewhere towards the end, my friend Cara called me too. It was awesome, like having my very own cheering section. Miles 22 through 24 dragged on a bit, but I managed to keep it around 10:00 pace. I knew I would make it. It wasn't pretty, but the faster I ran, the faster I would be able to get back to Will. Once we finally turned onto Armory Street, I knew I was home-free. I have run this part of the course hundreds of times and felt like I was on my own turf.

We turned onto Hessel Blvd and I cruised to the end. Before I knew it, I was entering Memorial Stadium and running across the astroturf to the finish line. I had made it! My finish time was 4:16:10, which was almost an hour faster than I had thought I might be able to run. I guess the key to being happy with your marathon time is to set your expectations low.

I found Rob and his dad in the stadium and we regrouped to head home. I really just wanted to get out of there and get back to Will. We'd left around 6:30 in the morning to head over to the start line, and it was now after noon. That was the longest I'd ever been away from him. And considering that he hadn't nursed very well before we left, I was in a lot of pain and practically shooting out milk. I had to get home and feed that baby!

When we got back home, I found that my worst fear regarding Will and this marathon had come true. He had pretty much refused to eat anything, either baby food or milk, while I was gone. He nursed most of the afternoon and evening, which was fine by me because I needed to get rid of all that milk, and also I just got to sit there and hold him, which was what I wanted to do more than anything in the world.

I'm glad I ran the Illinois Marathon this year. It was my 9th marathon, and my first one back since having Will 8-1/2 months ago. I figured this would be my slowest marathon yet, but my finishing time was actually about 2 minutes faster than my first marathon, some 7 years ago. It was one of the smoothest marathons I've ever run--the volunteers were great, and I had my mom and Cara talking to me on the phone during the final miles. Plus, after having given birth, everything else feels kind of pale in comparison.

Anyway, everything is just kind of rough because of the awful sadness that is going on in my family right now. Running a marathon just seemed inconsequential. There are bigger things to focus on. Please continue to keep my sister and her husband (and my mom, who is the glue who holds us all together) in your thoughts right now.

Thanks for reading.

Awkward

I've always had trouble with my pelvis, but it has not been quite the same since well before giving birth. Until Will was about 3 or 4 months old, I constantly felt like my pelvis was about to snap in two. I suppose it didn't help matters that Will required being carried some 12 hours a day, or that his carseat weighs some 300 pounds, or that I tried to start running again 8 days after he was born.

I kind of just kept going, because really, what else can you do? I tried to build up my mileage to start marathon training, but nothing in my body felt like it was put together right. I started feeling pain in my IT band area, so I got a new pair of shoes (the ones I had been running on were quite old and worn out) and kept running. Things didn't get any better, and I realized that the pain was not in my IT band but more in my (very) lower back. I tried to run on Wednesday evening and just couldn't do it.

In desperation, I decided to try getting a "sports massage." Rob had good luck with one of these after his last marathon. I didn't really know what to do, so I just randomly called a place, they had a time for me that same day, and they said it was okay if I brought Will, so I went.

When I got there, the massage therapist turned out to be a guy-- a very young guy. He had a fair amount of piercings and his hair color was probably not natural. I felt like I was old enough to be his mother. It was kind of awkward.

He started massaging my aching lower back and couldn't hide his amazement at how messed up my pelvis was. Muscles, ligaments, and bones were apparently not where they were supposed to be. I always, always, always hold Will on my left side-- this is partially because my hips are crooked (and always have been) and I can actually balance him on my left hip, but cannot on my right. It is also because I'm right handed, and holding him on my left side frees my right hand. At any rate, Massage Boy said that my pelvis was definitely messed up from the way that I always hold the baby. The muscles on my left side were hyper-developed, whereas the muscles on my right side (the side that hurt) were practically atrophied in comparison. Such a huge imbalance had messed up my sacro-iliac joint and apparently everything else in the region.

The massage experience became more awkward when Massage Boy informed me that he did not have a client scheduled for the next session and that he would like to keep working on my gluteal region some more. No extra charge.

Will was being a trooper, but he was having trouble hanging in there by the end. Blue Seahorse ran out of batteries all of a sudden and was no longer playing music. It was time to go.

So I go out to the front desk to pay, and on the receipt there was a place to add a tip. Like when you use a credit/debit card to pay at a restaurant. I was like, oh crap, am I supposed to tip the guy? Never having had a sports massage before, I did not know what the etiquette was. I stood there, awkwardly, wondering if I could somehow quickly call somebody who was more experienced in these matters and ask them if I was supposed to tip and if so, how much.

I ended up leaving a tip, hoping it was the right thing to do. The guy did spend 45 minutes on me (continuing to work my gluteal region) instead of the half hour I was being charged for.

I am still in a fair amount of pain. It is really hard to pick up or hold Will, which is unfortunate for everyone. In fact, I think the sports massage actually made it worse. But worse in a way that seems like "this is going to get worse before it gets better" way, hopefully.

I am paranoid that I'm not going to make it to the marathon. Now I've got to delicately balance taking time off to heal versus continuing to build up my miles. If I take too much time off, I won't be prepared for the marathon. If I take too little time off, I will make the injury worse and not be able to run at all.

I'm trying not to be in a bad mood about this, but it isn't working so well.

Taking it back

My mom brought me my baby book around the time Will was born, and yesterday I was looking through it to see when I got my first teeth (Will hasn't gotten any teeth yet). On the first page of the baby book, my mom had taped the information pamphlet given to her by the maternity ward of the hospital where she had me. I read through it, and at first it made me want to cry. Then it made me mad. Really mad.

What made me so mad was the hospital policy of separating mothers and babies. Look at the bottom left. "...please instruct your friends, relatives, husband, etc., of the time when babies are in the room as you are not permitted to answer the phone when you have your baby." Then they list the times when you have your baby. 9:30-10:30am. 1-2pm. 4:30-5:30pm. Three hours a day. Three hours a day!

WHY IN GOD'S NAME DID ANYONE EVER THINK THIS WAS OKAY?

I mean seriously. I would have just liked to see some one try to come between me and Will after he was born. Several of their limbs would have been torn off. I can't imagine anything more cruel and inhumane than separating a mother and her baby. What was the purpose of this? What was it supposed to achieve? Did doctors really believe women were only capable of seeing their babies for 3 hours a day? And that they couldn't even handle talking on the phone while the baby was present? What did these doctors think that women were going to do once they got home?

On the bottom right of the pamphlet (see below), it does say that this hospital allowed the option of "rooming in" on request. I asked my mom if she had roomed in with me. "Oh Lord no," she said. "It was unheard of. I was in a room with three other women. Your dad couldn't even be in the room when they brought you in for me to nurse."

I expressed my outrage at such idiotic policy, and my mother shared the sentiment. She recalled that she was furious and that she even got "lippy" with the nurses (to no avail, of course). "Yes, it was inhumane," she agreed with me. "They totally ignored women back then. But what did we know? We had no choice. And I certainly didn't want to have you alone at home."

That's the thing about this. The thing that makes me so mad.

The right side of the pamphlet, in the middle of the page, indicates that women weren't allowed to get up and use the bathroom for six to eight hours after giving birth. Even then you had to have a written order from the doctor, granting you permission. My mom said she didn't remember this part. What she remembers is that her neck hurt so bad while she was lying in that hospital bed, and she asked the nurses for a heating pad. They told her they couldn't give her one without a doctor's order, and it was nighttime, so they didn't want to call and disturb him. "So as I think about it, my neck has hurt for the last 30 years," she told me.

Many things infuriate me about all of this, but perhaps what infuriates me the most is that these policies make breastfeeding impossible. My mother always told me that she wanted to breastfeed, but she couldn't. After reading this pamphlet, I'm all, NO SHIT, SHERLOCK. If you are only "allowed" to see the baby 3 times a day, for an hour each time, how on earth is your milk going to come in? And even if it does, how on earth are you going to make enough milk to feed the baby? Clearly, while the babies were being kept away from their mothers in the sterile environment of the nursery, they would have to have been given formula or sugar water or whatever other crap doctors thought was "best" back then. Formula companies got rich while breastfeeding almost became a lost art in this country, and most women probably blamed themselves for not being able to do it.

I was terrified of giving birth in a hospital, for fear that it would be the same sort of patriarchal, assembly line experience that my mother had had and that it would end with me being unable to breastfeed. But things have changed in the last 30 years. I labored in a tub and on my knees and on all fours or standing or sitting-- however it felt bearable. I had a midwife and a female obstetrician and a doula who whispered encouragement to me for at least 12 hours straight and who advocated for me so that they didn't give me pitocin when I stalled at 5-cm for 4 hours. I got to have my husband with me the whole time, and I got to hold my naked, bloody, writhing baby the moment he entered this world. He never left my side after that, and no one gave him formula (even though the doctors told me I should). I had a lactation consultant who worked with us for weeks and weeks to get this baby to latch right and to get me to make enough milk for him, when despite everything that we had going for us, I still almost wasn't able to do it. I had to fight every step of the way for every last little thing, but not fighting was never an option.

I look at the policies under which I was born, written out in black and white like that, and it makes me wonder when birth was taken away from the mother, and why. I realize this is why I felt so strongly about giving birth the way I did and about breastfeeding. I was fighting to take it back.

The things you remember

They say that time heals all wounds, and although I have mainly forgotten the pain of labor, there are other things that I have not forgotten. I had a pretty severe case of nausea and vomiting throughout my whole pregnancy (and even for a while afterwards). My midwife used the term "hyperemesis gravidarum" (HG) and she prescribed me anti-nausea medication that, in the end, only barely took the edge off. But I'm not so sure that I would go as far as calling what I had HG. It was bad nausea and vomiting, but what I went through wasn't nearly as bad as all-out HG. I've read some stories written by women who have suffered HG, and what they write chills me to the bone. I think what I had falls somewhere between the lines of severe morning sickness and very mild HG. Regardless, it sucked.

My sister had HG during her pregnancy. She was so sick, I don't know how she got through it. She was pregnant when I was doing my dissertation fieldwork on Ometepe-- a fairly remote volcanic island in Lake Nicaragua. At that time, I could only relate to her experience through the motion-sickness induced nausea I felt whenever we took the boat to the mainland. I thought of her, and how awful it must be, throughout our epic trip to the mainland on a day that was windier than it had first seemed. The excursion involved a nearly 3 hour bus ride to the port city of Moyogalpa, an hour and a half boat ride across choppy Lake Nicaragua, a 15 minute taxi ride to Rivas (where we got our supplies), and then doing the whole thing in reverse to get back home again. The boat ride back across the lake was brutal. I puked, I moaned, I clenched my fists, I survived only by intense meditation and the power of yoga breathing. I thought, it can't be like this for my sister, can it? No one could survive feeling like this all the time.

Well, it was like that. I took medication that made the nausea just tolerable enough that I somewhat retained the will to live, but it did not make life enjoyable in the least. It didn't go away right after Will was born either. Even now, almost 5 months out, there are still so many things that make me feel sick.

During the latter half of my pregnancy, I had a dentist appointment. I was more than a little nervous about going, for fear I'd puke on them while they were working on my teeth, but I was even more afraid to not go-- who knew what kind of awful state my teeth would be in from all that puking. As I entered the office and began to hesitantly explain my situation to the dental hygienist, I was surprised that she knew all about this condition. The receptionist at the practice had suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum during her pregnancy, and everyone in the office knew how horrible it could be. "You should talk to her," the hygienist told me. "She was so sick. She lost 20 pounds and couldn't work for months. Her daughter is 6 years old now, and she doesn't ever want to have any more children." I did talk to her on my way out, and I could see how haunted she still was.

There are things you remember and things you forget. I am surprised that I've already forgotten how bad labor was, despite the fact that while I was experiencing it, I considered it to be excruciating. I am nowhere near forgetting hyperemesis. And judging from the few women I've talked to who have had HG, you never do. Rob (who I think might still be traumatized from witnessing Will's birth), was surprised when I told him I would rather go through birth again than experience hyperemesis. As SL's wife pointed out, the pain of labor isn't enough to make you not want to have more babies. I'm pretty sure that hyperemesis is. If I ever forget about it, I think it will be a long time from now. At the moment, I haven't even stopped having flashbacks.

Thanks for reading.

The things you forget

Will was born around 4-1/2 months ago. The whole thing took a lot out of me. It made me wonder how on earth our species has persisted for some 6 million years on this planet: why would any woman go through this thing again after knowing all it entailed?

They say that you forget the pain of labor, but it didn't seem possible that I would ever forget it. I did it without any pain medication, all 23 hours of it, and I felt every last thing. It was not the type of transcendent experience I had read about in Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. I never noticed the natural endorphins my yoga teacher had assured us would kick in. In fact, it was flat-out the scariest experience I have ever had. I didn't know it was possible for a human being to scream as loud as I did.

But then when Will was about 3 months old, I realized I couldn't quite describe what a contraction felt like anymore. And gradually, I stopped reliving the whole traumatic thing every minute of every day. While we were out for a walk in the neighborhood one afternoon, I actually said to Rob, "You know, it wasn't that bad. I could probably do it again if I had to." He looked at me like I had lost my mind and said something to the effect of, "Are you freaking kidding me?" I guess the experience wasn't far enough in the past for him to forget.

At my dissertation defense party a few weeks ago, I was talking about Will's birth with SL's wife and some of the other graduate students from my department. I marveled again at how there came to be some 6 billion people on the planet when the process of giving birth is our only means of multiplication. SL's wife, who has had two children herself, replied that there are many reasons why someone would choose to not have any more children after the first one, but that remembering the pain of labor wasn't one of them. Maybe you forget, or maybe it just stops mattering.

For the longest time after Will's birth, I looked back on the whole experience with so much negativity. I felt like I had fallen apart during his birth--what with my stalling at 5 cm for 4 hours and then with all the screaming I did. But finally, enough time has passed that I am beginning to look at the positive aspects instead of just the negative. No matter how ugly it got, I did it, and on my own terms. I'm just on the cusp of starting to see it as pretty amazing.

Thanks for reading.

Some pertinent background information

A lot of things took place before I started this blog, and I wrote about them elsewhere.

First of all, I got pregnant. I wish I could say that I was a glowing and radiant, but unfortunately I was not. I had severe nausea and vomiting the whole time (and even for a while after). You can read the highlights (if they can so be called?) of this journey here and here.

Then, I gave birth. It was an epic experience, is all I can say. The whole long story is in four parts, but if you just want to cut to the chase, we had a baby. We named him William Miles, and the minute I laid eyes on him, I knew he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

• Part 1: Tuesday's Child?
• Part 2: Wednesday's Child?
• Part 3: Waterlogged and Tender
• Part 4: Aftermath

The story didn't end there. The baby wouldn't stop crying, ever. Nursing was terrible. We were seeing a lactation consultant twice a week, but nothing was getting better. Finally, our lactation consultant suggested that Will's crying was because he was hungry, and she began treating me for a low milk supply (hence the impetus for this blog). That part of the story begins here.