Archive for June, 2008

For those of you who aren’t on Facebook, you may not know that there are a bunch of “applications” you can add to your account there. They can do anything from the very pointless to the very cool, and there are about a zillion of them to choose from. One of them, iThink, particularly enjoys advertising in the sidebar and I see things like this image pop up every so often. It’s not always the same statement they want me to agree or disagree with, but this one is the most puzzling to me. 

Where’s the debate here? I was in a long-distance relationship for three years and now I am married to the man I was in that relationship with. So… it worked, right? I’m not even close to being a pioneer in this. It’s been going on successfully between various couples for a long, long time. “I could never be in a long-distance relationship” is a valid statement for a lot of people. “Long-distance relationships usually don’t work” may well be true; I don’t have any stats about that sort of thing. But to say flat out that they just don’t work means that they don’t ever work, and that’s obviously not true. You just need one couple to prove that wrong, and there have been many. Small percentage of the whole, probably, but that doesn’t matter. Anyone who actually disagrees with the statement in that ad is just plain wrong. It’s not an opinion question.

Larry Wayne Strother, III
a.k.a. “Tres”

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June 27, 2008
1:50pm CDT

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8 lbs 7.5 oz
20.5 inches

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Congrats, Wayne and Monica!

Belly pic, taken today, 30 weeks. Feel free to compare to 2.5 weeks ago.

Just because I can.

I remember sitting with my mother in Tucci Benucch in the Mall of America discussing childbirth. Perhaps it was when she had flown up to take care of me when I had my wisdom teeth removed, which might be how we got on the topic of pain, but I’m not entirely certain. But I definitely remember the conversation we had, as it was the first time I learned a number of things about my mother and about birthing. It was during this conversation that I learned that her doctor had told her she had an ectopic pregnancy, yet upon going in to remove it, discovered it wasn’t ectopic at all. Then her doctor told her that the stress of the procedure would cause her to miscarry, but she didn’t. Then her doctor encouraged an abortion because the drugs she had for the procedure would have caused harm to the baby, but she said no. And then several months later, I was born. We joked that the drugs must have caused my abnormally short toes. 

I also learned that my mother gave birth to me and both of my older brothers without an epidural. It was offered to her, but she didn’t see a point at getting pain relief so late in the game. She said she was practically done by that point. All three times, her labor lasted approximately four hours. For those of you who have never met my mother, she is hardly the stereotype you may have in your head for women supporting natural childbirth. Indeed, I was induced a week early, which isn’t natural at all. Her decision to not get an epidural was made on logical grounds: she didn’t think the risks to the baby were worth what little relief she felt it would give her. (It is worth noting both that epidurals today are not the same as epidurals 30+ years ago, and that this statement is not intended to be a judgement on anyone else’s choices as every birth is different.) 

This conversation with my mother was pretty much the first time I’d thought about childbirth outside of the horror that Hollywood makes it out to be. It was before I was pregnant or intended to become so… possibly before I’d even met Thomas, though I’m not certain. I hadn’t had much reason to think about it before, or since, until the notion of going through it myself became more real. Somewhat suddenly, I was reading a lot of books and websites and threads on forums. I learned a lot about the history of childbirth in America, and to a lesser extent, some of the rest of the world. 

I learned about twilight sleep, where women are drugged up such that they can’t remember birthing at all, and they wake up the next day with a baby they didn’t have before. I learned that this was standard procedure until the 60s when the natural childbirth movement made triumphant strides into the mainstream, and by the 70s, birthing women had so many wonderful choices! 

What I didn’t learn was that the natural childbirth movement didn’t take over quite as quickly as these sources might lead you to believe. I had thought that by the 70s, twilight sleep was a thing of the past. Then I talked to my mother again. 

We talk a lot on Skype these days. In addition to being my mother, she’s also one of the few women I’ve known for more than about a month who has actually given birth. It isn’t uncommon for us to discuss pregnancy and baby stuff, but somehow the subject of actually giving birth hadn’t come up since that conversation years ago, until last week. I was surprised to learn that she had actually given birth under twilight sleep, and had to specifically request to stay awake for her other births. 

I have two older brothers. Before them, though, there was another. I knew this, but I didn’t know that he was born under twilight sleep. I didn’t know that my mother went into the hospital one morning, remembers nothing about the rest of the day, and then the next day awoke to be told that her son was stillborn. It’s no wonder that when she was in labor with Wayne she insisted on being awake for it. She wanted to know what was happening. There was another woman in the room giving birth under twilight sleep, thrashing about like a wild animal and requiring multiple people to restrain her. The next day, she woke up remembering nothing and acting as the sweetest woman in the world. It’s no wonder my mother continued to choose being awake for Brent’s and my births in the future. 

Recently, at dinner with my in-laws, my mother-in-law lamented that she had never gotten to give birth vaginally. She showed her Cesarean scar, made at a time when they were done vertically, which, my nurse sister-in-law explained, isn’t done anymore except in special circumstances. 

This week, if he hasn’t already made his appearance, my nephew will be born. My brother and his wife are expecting a little boy, due July 4th, but the doctor says the baby is too large and should come out early. I had thought it was placenta previa that made the early birth necessary, but apparently the placenta did move away from the cervix. It’s just that the baby is “too big.” I’m curious to see how big he actually is. The doctor said if she doesn’t go into labor before Wednesday, she’ll be induced then. 

I’m not sure if there’s an overall point to this post, though in my defense, I’m awake at 4am and my husband is at work. I guess it’s just that before embarking on my own journey towards motherhood, I never realized that the act of giving birth could be such a phenomenally different experience for different people and/or at different times. I never realized there was so much more to it than enduring pain to get to the joy of holding your baby. And yet it almost seems obvious now that this major milestone would be so complicated 

In two to three months I’ll be sharing my own story. I hope it’s a positive one.

I finally got around to uploading the pics from Odense, and which I was at it I have uploaded some new videos to the site too. These include footage from Dagmar’s ultrasounds, our trip to the Berlin Zoo, our trip to the Odense Zoo, and the arrival of a new cat tree in our flat. There’s also a short compilation of old, poor-quality cat footage. I hope you enjoy it!

Belly pic, taken June 8th, 27 weeks and 4 days.

Comment from old blog

Look at your little bump, you look great! Hope you’re feeling better!
Abby | 2008-06-15 12:07

Wednesday morning started out like any other day. I got out of bed and prepared for my day. I had some cheese toast for a light breakfast. 

Wednesdays are Danish Conversation Group days, which are kind of a mixed bag. Sometimes it is helpful and fun, and sometimes it is painful to go. I took the S-train to Hellerup for the meeting, and was glad to see a couple of women there I hadn’t seen before. Sure enough, they had come with ideas for a great meeting. One had a children’s book about travelling to Skåne, and we read through it together, learning both about Danish and about Skåne. And about how whoever translated the book from Swedish to Danish was a bit sloppy, as there were still some jags and ochs in there, but we got through it. The verdict this time: Helpful and fun. We meet at a café, and during our time there I had some orange juice and a couple croissants. I do love croissants. 

I walked back to the train station just in time to watch my train pull away from the platform. Not a big deal, as it comes every four minutes. The C line goes all the way from Hellerup to Herlev without transfers, but I always take the F line and transfer to the H or C in Flintholm, because it saves me about 15 minutes due to avoiding the whole downtown area. So it would have made perfect sense to wait the 4 minutes for the next F, but right at that moment a C pulled up, and I thought, what the hell. I’m not in a hurry or anything. I knew it would take longer, but who cares? 

Thomas and I have often remarked that DSB schedules the H and the C all wrong. The H doesn’t go anywhere the C doesn’t go. It doesn’t go as far as the C in one direction, and it skips a few stops in the other direction, so it’s kind of like a limited-stop version of the C. It would be sensible then, if the H came a little bit before the C so that the people in a hurry could get on that, and the people who need to go to small podunk stops can wait for the C. Right? In my experience, the C always comes before the H. In either direction. Now, before you point out that they both come before each other because they come all day long, I’m saying that you have an 8-12 minute stretch of no trains at all, and then the C comes 1-3 minutes before the H. I think it should be the other way around. 

Why am I telling you this? Well, because I took the C instead of the F, I ended up going through the downtown area, and when my C train arrived at Østerport, I noticed the signs saying that an H was arriving in just 2 minutes. Østerport is where the H starts its journey in this direction, so this means they had to have planned it this way. It wasn’t delayed at a previous station or anything. They really decided to make it come 2 minutes after the C. This is especially puzzling because of the fact that the H skips past some stations where the C stops, and even more relevantly, at all those stops it skips, there is only one set of tracks for each direction. This means the H cannot overtake the C. It takes more than 2 minutes (probably 6 or for the C to stop at those stops, so how can the H start out being only 2 minutes behind the C? 

I wanted to know how this would turn out. At every stop, I checked the signs, and the H was scheduled to come 2 minutes behind the C. Then we get to Vanløse. This is the last stop before a stretch of three stops that the H skips. Still, the H is reportedly coming 2 minutes behind the C. How can this possibly work? My C train stops at Jyllingevej, Islev, and Husum before pulling into Herlev which reports the H will arrive in 1 minute. 

There is just no way that the difference between stopping at three stations and driving on past them is one minute. No way. The only way this can happen is to make the H stop on the tracks and wait for the C to go. So in other words, DSB has planned this schedule so that even though the H skips past several stops, you will not get where you’re going any faster than if you take the C. This is even more ridiculous than I had originally thought. After Herlev, there are a couple of other stretches of stops that the H skips, so this problem undoubtedly continues down the line. The H has to stop and wait for the C. So wtf is the point? 

You may be wondering why I went off on this tangent. Weren’t we walking about how my day was going? Well you see, by the time my train got to Østerport, it was clear to me that I had a very real need to vomit. (Ever since I got pregnant, vomiting has been a staple for any day where I haven’t eaten enough. It must be that my cheese toast and two croissants was not enough today.) I have a major aversion to public vomiting. So while I would have found the above train experiment rather interesting at any point, it became my sole focus at the time because I needed to think about something other than vomiting. It worked beautifully. I was able to make it from the station and up the stairs to our flat and in the bathroom before my stomach let loose its contents into my bathtub. (Yes, bathtub. I’d like to see YOU kneel before a toilet quickly and without injury when you’re 28 weeks pregnant.) 

I was very much expecting to vomit. What I wasn’t expecting was what happened next. That is, nothing. Normally, I vomit and then I feel better. I can go about my day. Normally starting off by eating something to avoid this happening again later. But now I vomited and I didn’t feel better. And in fact, I had zero appetite. I wanted nothing. The thought of food was not good. At various times after this point, I forced myself to drink or eat something, but it always came back up. Toast. Water. Sprite. Sun Lolly. Apple. Pork wantons. Fried rice. Nothing stays down. Add to this the increasing incidence of cramps in the belly area. 

I don’t get menstrual cramps. I haven’t felt any Braxton Hicks at all. I don’t get cramps. Now I’m getting cramps. My mind flashes to the birth story of a woman in my online due date club. Due about a week after me, she actually gave birth in May. Her son is doing fine, although of course at this stage, fine means “oh sure he’s hooked up to tubes for everything and is constantly monitored and sometimes something concerning happens but for the most part we think everything will end up well.” In her birth story, she said it all started with some stomach pains that she didn’t think much about. Stomach pains? I’m having stomach pains! No good thoughts at this point. 

Good husband he is, after getting home from work and seeing how much fun I’m having, Thomas scours the web for possible information and gives me lots of backrubs. He wisely thinks it is not as big of a problem as I fear, but respects my feelings. I love this man. 

So anyway, Wednesday night consists of me waking up every 15-45 minutes or so with stomach cramps, intense hunger, and barely enough strength to make it to the bathroom to pee. (How I have always managed to pee so often even though I can’t drink anything is really quite a mystery.) At around 4:30 Thursday morning, I give up on the sleeping thing and take a somewhat relaxing bath. I eat a Sun Lolly and I think it might actually stay down, not that it provides any nutrition or anything. I pour a glass of ice water and get back into bed. I’m not planning on sleeping, but it’s a comfortable place to be. I take two sips of water and about a minute later… yup, I am hurling into a bucket. It wakes Thomas. 

I ask Thomas to call the hospital. I figure at the least they will have some advice about how to keep things from being puked out again, and if it’s something serious then, well, the hospital should know, right? I’m still envisioning ambulances and IVs. Really, I am not always such a downer. But when you haven’t had any food for a day I think you’re allowed some slack in where your thoughts venture. 

Thomas discusses what’s going on with a midwife, who apparently doesn’t speak much or any English. I understood enough of what he was saying to know he asked for someone who spoke English but then agreed to just translate for me. Occasionally he asked me some questions, but he knew most of the answers himself. Yes, she’s throwing up everything. Yes, even water. Is the baby still kicking? Yes. That’s good. Fever? No. 

After a few minutes of this, it is determined that I have a stomach bug, perhaps caught from one of the kids at the mommy group I go to. I didn’t think any of them were sick, but ok. But most importantly, we got advice on what might stay down. 

Thomas cut up a piece of bread into 16 tiny squares, and over the course of several hours I ate one square at a time, with Nutella. I still had no appetite and I didn’t really want the bread, but it went down and stayed down. If I sipped Coke slowly enough, it stayed down too. But still not water. Water doesn’t want to stay down. So Coke and bread it was until dinner time, when I finally realized I actually wanted some food. Potatoes. I want potatoes. Thomas gets me some potatoes from the rotisserie chicken place across the street. I love this man. 

There were a few times I thought I might throw up again, but no! The potatoes worked! Though I can hardly say that a piece of bread, a few small potatoes, and some sips of Coke consist of good nutrition for a whole day, this is way better than the whole nothing-in-the-stomach-all-day-Wednesday situation. I sleep relatively well Thursday night, waking up a few times to pee, of course. 

So now it’s Friday morning. I don’t feel 100% but I feel well enough to eat some more potatoes and say with confidence that it really was not me going into early labor on Wednesday and I really do not need to be rushed to the hospital and hooked up to an IV. In about an hour, I meet with a midwife for a standard consultation. My midwife? Who knows. I still haven’t met my midwife yet, and since there’s a strike going on, there’s a good chance my midwife won’t be there and I’ll meet with some random midwife whose English is marginally better than my Danish and we can struggle through the meeting and I’ll not get any of my questions answered to my satisfaction. But at least I’m not a downer anymore, right?

A white one. July 11th.  :D

And in other news, I made another purchase for Dagmar. Namely, some awesome used-but-pristine cloth diapers (Fuzzi Buns and Imse Vimse). I feel slightly more prepared for her arrival.

We had our fourth and final ultrasound today, so all the pre-birth pictures you will ever get of Dagmar are up on this site. You may recall the crappy experience we had with ultrasound #2, and I must say #3 and 4 were amazing and wonderful. Anyone in Denmark who is thinking about doing a 3D ultrasound… Scanningsklinniken is amazing. Obviously I went to the Copenhagen one, but they have ones in Århus and Kolding as well. We had a different tech today than we did on Saturday and they were both really nice, they both spoke English to me, said what was going on, etc. They were cheerful and took tons of photos, and made DVDs of the entire session. I was extremely pleased with the first session, and would have left happy enough anyway, but the tech said we could come again for free to try to get better facial shots, and, well, I’m not going to turn down another chance to see my baby so in we went again today. 

On Saturday, Dagmar was lying head pointing downwards, and today she had flipped so her head was up, but in both cases she insisted in putting a minimum of three limbs in front of her face at all times. Today, she even went so far as to get the umbilical cord in the way too. All things considered, we still got some great shots and you can still tell she’s the most adorable baby ever. (You do know you have to pretend to agree, right?) 

My mother went clothes shopping too. I got a warning email with the following list of items she picked up. 

• yellow two piece – top and bloomers – 6/9 months
• lime check one piece – 12 months
• orange check one piece – 12 months
• light blue with multi stripes one piece – 12 months
• pink print one piece – 18 months
• aqua check one piece – 18 months
• with dress with red trim and flower print – 18 months
• orange and pink one piece – 24 months
• pink check one piece – 24 months
• yellow with multi pink stripes – 24 months

So, the in-laws pretty much took care of the first few months and my mother is chipping away at the next year or so after that. Mother has also reminded me that she kept way too many of my old clothes and she’s passing them on to me. 

Aaaand, I’m getting a good deal on some very gently used cloth diapers from a friend. I feel well on the way to being ready for Dagmar’s arrival! But, you know, in that, please stay the remaining three months you’re supposed to and give me some more time to really process what the heck I’m getting into kinda way.